We’ve been charting pretty extensively here at Calitics the ways in which Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are deeply hostile to Latinos and their values. Fiorina supports SB 1070 and Whitman, as you know, thinks successful Latino students don’t belong in school. No surprise then that both candidates are tanking with the state’s Latino electorate, without which one cannot win a statewide race.
So how are Whitman and Fiorina going to deal with the fallout from their alienation of Latino voters? By downing shots!
NBC News put it this way: “Republicans Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina having a little fun and downing shots a tequila Friday night, going along with tradition during a Hispanic 100 award gala in California. Fiorina was very animated at the beginning of her speech, calling for shots of tequila before every speech and then even let out a high-pitched trill of the tongue.”…
“This evening has spoiled me forever,” Fiorina tells the crowd. “From now on..I want to follow an incredible mariachi band. And I don’t know, I think every speech should begin with a shot of tequila.”
This is a classic manifestation of what some have called “mariachi politics,” where politicians think the way you win Latino votes is to have a mariachi band play, or in this case to down a shot of Cuervo (which might get you respect in a USC frat house but probably won’t faze a Latino voter in Santa Ana worried about their job and their home). Meaningless gestures do not actually count as addressing Latinos’ concerns, yet politicians like Whitman and Fiorina seem to think they do.
Perhaps it’s because they have no real connection to the Latino community. Barbara Boxer has been fighting for Latinos for at least 20 years, which is about half the time that Jerry Brown has been doing the same. Whitman’s Latino outreach consists of exploiting a housekeeper, whereas Brown walked with Cesar Chavez and mounted a very strong and passionate defense of the DREAM Act at the Fresno debate.
Fiorina’s record is even worse, having embraced every immigrant and Latino-bashing proposal and frame in the primaries to win the hearts of her right-wing base. Now that Fiorina has to try and win Latino votes in the general election, she finds that all she can do is drink shots and give a bad grito in the hopes that it will be enough for Latinos to forget her terrible record on their issues and needs.
Unfortunately for Fiorina, there isn’t enough Cuervo in the world for that to happen.
I think they should have been drinking Patron(a) tequila cus I am sure there are now bottles with their faces on them.
We want to make sure that Carly sees the worm.
Son vergonzosas.
Thanks to the spotlight brought by Gloria Allred to the way she treated her houskeeper after 9 years of loyal service, latinos will vote in greater numbers than previously anticipated and they will vore for Brown and Boxer.
A shot of tequila may become our daily ritual as all we Californians may be toast… the State no longer generates enough wealth to tax to provide the services we want, Ahnuld has line-item veto-ed out primary social services, Brown has not articulated a plan about just how he proposes to do what he counldn’t do in Oakland (and Ahnuld sure has not done in Sacto) and Boxer has never brought home the Fed bacon in proportion to our $ we sent east (likewise DiFi). Oh and our budget is balanced on an assumption of a Fed-provided bailout. Either we cut those Water Boards and Commissions and centralize an effective and efficient Stae gov’t or we won’t do a very good job of educating, caring for the young, sick and elderly, feeding the hungry and providing hope to those suffering. I hope it’s not tequila time… that would be bad….
My wife is Mexican-American and she was totally bewildered by the whole thing especially the “grito”. She just sat there staring at the TV. Then the news anchor called it a yodel. Still trying to figure out which is more offensive..