HISPANIC VOTING BLOC? "Despite proposals by the White House and certain congressional Republicans for increased immigration, amnesty for illegal aliens, and new guest worker programs, a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies finds no evidence of a Republican surge among Latino voters in the 2002 mid-term elections," reported CIS January 16. A paper by Prof. James Gimpel of the University of Maryland drew on Fox News exit polls in ten states to conclude that Republicans have yet to succeed in increasing their share of the Hispanic vote. "The Latino vote for GOP Senate candidates was similar to prior years, at about one-third; gubernatorial candidates fared better, at close to one-half," says CIS. "But Latinos who voted in 2002 had higher income and education levels than the Latino electorate as a whole. Turnout of lower- and middle-income Latinos was much lower in 2002 than in 2000." More fundamentally, argues CIS, "There is no 'Latino' voting bloc, as such-after controlling for party identification, income, and education, there is no difference between Latino voting and the voting pattern of non-Hispanic whites in either the Senate or gubernatorial races of 2002." Wrote Gimpel, "If Latinos cannot be politically distinguished on the basis of ethnicity after we account for their income and education levels, why do we persist in the belief that we need to reach them with a distinctive set of policy proposals. . .?"
THE NEXT 'TOP COP'? As soon as the President nominated Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Michael Chertoff to the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals last month, buzzing began at the Justice Department over who would succeed the onetime Whitewater investigator as head of the Criminal Division. Among the names being mentioned are Alice Fisher, Chertoff's deputy; Leslie Caldwell, the federal prosecutor in the Enron and Arthur Anderson cases; and former U.S. Attorney Fred Foreman of Chicago-all considered aggressive prosecutors.
NO PRO-LIFERS WELCOME: That might as well have been the sign outside the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington when all six Democrats who have announced or are exploring a bid for President in '04 addressed the dinner of the National Abortion Rights Action League on January 21, the night before the March for Life. Every candidate denounced the administration's pro-life position and hailed the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) drew wild applause when he declared "one of the first things I'll tell him is, 'There's a defining issue between us. I trust women to make their own decisions. You don't.'"
HARD TO CUT: Every time someone gets the idea of eliminating anything in the federal government, there invariably is a constituency that howls and fights to keep it alive. Recently there were published reports that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had proposed to abolish three senior Pentagon posts: the assistant secretaries of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict (SOLIC), for legislative affairs, and for reserve affairs. Without any official word from Rumsfeld, Jayson Spiegel, executive director of the Reserve Officers Association, denounced the plan, declaring that the person who handles financial needs for the 80,000 National Guard and Reserve members "needs to be elevated, not eliminated."
NO RESPECT: Being in favor of the Constitution's 2nd Amendment doesn't make National Rifle Association (NRA) President Charlton Heston popular with his peers. According to columnist Liz Smith, Heston's fellow actor George Clooney told a National Board of Review audience, "Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's." Later, he told Smith that he didn't think his joke was out of bounds. "I don't care," he said. "Charlton Heston is the head of the NRA; he deserves whatever anyone says about him."
UNFAIR: Wrote Republican political consultant Arnold Steinberg in the Daily News of Los Angeles last month, "According to a Daily News investigation, the average city civilian worker in Los Angeles makes more than $54,000, up nearly $11,000 in five years. Almost no city worker is earning less than $40,000. And, then, there are paid holidays, health benefits and pensions." As the state of California faces huge cuts in spending to close its enormous $35-billion deficit, he noted that unions get their contracts protected by politicians such as Gov. Gray Davis (D.), who receive massive contributions from them. "We must find some way to curb the power of union bosses," he said. "They cannot be allowed to elect public officials who are supposed to negotiate with them."
