I received a lot of grief on this site here and here and here when I pointed out that Republicans have a better record of appointing minorities to key positions. My favorite of all the responses was this:
Actually, since the Democratic Party has alot more minority members in its ranks than the Republican Party, minorities have a bigger voice in what the Party does. This hardly qualifies as the Party telling minorities how to think. It entails members of the Party telling the Party what positions to take. Of course there is always room for alot of improvement in this regard within the Dem Party. That’s what people are working on these days.
In light of recent news, all of those minority members of the Democratic Party had better get moving on telling those “leaders” what positions to take. Right now, they are taking all of the wrong positions. For example, let’s look at this little gem of recent news, shall we?
Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Joe Lieberman, neither of whom is Hispanic, will head the Democratic Hispanic Task Force in the U.S. Senate in the 109th Congress.
Bingaman, a New Mexican who is fluent in Spanish, has served as the task force co-chair for a decade, according to his office.
So, even though there is a Hispanic Democratic Senator, Ken Salazar of Colorado, non-Hispanic Senator Bingaman and his cohorts demonstrate their unwillingness to relinquish the seat of power. Now mind you, this was a true test to see how much Democrats, and specifically Senator Bingaman, value Hispanics. This is only the third time in the history of the Senate that the Democrats have had a Hispanic amongst their members. And by all accounts, they just failed the test.
Why? Well, that is a very simple answer:
Though it may seem logical for Salazar to head such a task force, Cook Political Report analyst Jennifer Duffy said that in the ways of the Senate, it isn’t.
Lieberman and Bingaman are up for re-election in 2006 and need to build support among Hispanic voters, while Salazar doesn’t have to run for five years and already enjoys great support from Hispanics. “Inside the Capitol building, it makes sense,” Duffy said. “Outside the Capitol building, it makes no sense.”
Finally, the truth comes out. For Democrats, like our Senator Bingaman, moving Hispanics forward takes a back seat to personal political agendas. This is intolerable coming from a man who is supposed to represent the interests of a state with the largest percentage of Hispanics in the nation. It’s time for a change