Monday, August 12, 2013

Mixed Messages

Occasionally, we hear about the ongoing woes of the Nevada Republican Party. Just weeks ago, the Clark County Republican Party elected a new Chair. And already, Dave McKeon is causing quite a stir (just not as top Nevada Republican operatives were hoping for).

And in case that's not enough drama, McKeon's father, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-California), is causing even more.



The audio is admittedly very tough to hear, but as Kaczynski noted, McKeon argued that "Arab persons" might leave the Middle East, move to Mexico, disguise themselves as Latinos, then enter the United States.

"There are people that can't tell the difference between a Hispanic person and an Arab person," the congressman argued, adding, "They can mingle in, and they can get in here, and then they can do damage."

So, let's consider the Republican message to Latinos in a nutshell: when the GOP isn't accusing you of being lazy and/or drug mules, the party's elected lawmakers are also questioning whether you might inadvertently help terrorists by looking like al Qaeda.

Yet again, the G-O-TEA id is bearing its ugly head. And it's doing so at the most inopportune time for Nevada Republicans.

Today, Rep. Joe Heck (R-??!!) held a(nother) pay-per-view "town hall". And when asked about immigration reform, he actually expressed support for a path to citizenship and some sort of reasonable overall approach. This is an interesting turnaround for Rep. Heck. While he also expressed support for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) in February, his recent voting record has told a very different story.

Actually, this has been an ongoing problem for the Republican Party here and elsewhere. They say something, yet they do the opposite. They throw out one message, then embrace something completely different. They convey a desire for "outreach", then they do everything possible to fence in.

So how are we to make sense of all these Republican mixed messages on CIR? If Rep. Heck is sincere in his desire to pass CIR, he can show it by doing his part to allow a floor vote on it. Otherwise, we just have a bunch of mixed messages that add up to a whole lot of nothing.

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