WHO IS ‘EVERYBODY ELSE’?…. Manuel Miranda, despite his controversial past, is apparently helping lead a coalition of conservatives against Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination. He spoke to a group of conservative bloggers this afternoon at the Heritage Foundation, and explained how the right could go after the judge without alienating Hispanic voters. David Weigel reported this observation from Miranda’s remarks:
“Hispanic polls, Hispanic surveys, indicate that Hispanics think just like everyone else. We’re not like African-Americans. We think just like everybody else. When I was on the leader’s staff, someone called me once and asked me: ‘What’s Senator Frist’s Hispanic agenda?’ I said, ‘low taxes, better education, more jobs … what are you talking about?’ And that’s how Hispanics are. This is an opportunity to educate them on all of our issues and they will resonate in the way that they resonate with everyone else.”
I had the same reaction Adam Serwer did: “What does it mean that Latinos are ‘not like African-Americans’ because they ‘think like everyone else’? I’m interested to hear Miranda’s explanation of the cognitive differences between black people and the rest of America.”
