CA-Gov: Whitman Launches Latino Coalition at Mexican Restaurant

Meg Whitman launched the Latino coalition portion of her campaign two days ago in South El Monte and rolled out a new web video of the launch.

The outreach program’s roll out was kind of a condescending caricature of the Latino community itself. Whitman’s campaign decided on a Mexican restaurant as the venue. Speedy Gonzales must have been booked, and with the Taco Bell chihuahua’s death this summer, they were pretty much out of other options, apparently.

Whitman launched her coalition of Latino supporters at a Mexican restaurant.

Whitman rattled off canned statistics about Latino entrepreneurial achievements as if she were delivering a shallow presentation in grammar school. Her patronizing lip service to the Latino community was without seriously delving into the problems the community faces, like our higher than average and record unemployment.

Job creation was discussed in broad, general talking points, but how can she target improving Latino employment numbers? We’re not all small businessmen and businesswomen. What will she do to shepherd Latino youth into good paying jobs when we graduate at abysmal rates in the state? Slashing regulations will not do much to help the uneducated, low-wage Latino workers that California’s failed education system produces. Rather it would hurt them and leave them vulnerable to unchecked employers.

And her opposition to driver’s licenses for the undocumented was a flop with the crowd described by the media as “mostly Republicans.”

Whitman said she opposes drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants, an answer met with silence by the crowd.

It is amazing that Whitman had the temerity to say something like this, too:

“I am a big believer in focus… in business and in life you can only do three things or four things at 100 percent. Let’s try this approach in government,” she said.

So either she’s going to only try real hard at three or four things as governor or just be terrible at many things. Sounds like a winning message.