UPDATE: May 31,2009 - GOP's Sessions walks into phase II of Soto-Strategy. On MTP when asked about Rush and Gingrich's attacks Sessions said "I am not going to use any such words"..... "people on the outside can say what they choose to say"
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While the racist statements about Justice Sotomayor from Rush, Tancredo, Hannity, and the rest of the GOP front men may seem slip shod a closer look reveals that they have a clear cut direction. The right has clearly decided that a wedge issue that will work for them in the 2010 election cycle is affirmative action and this is the opening salvo for yet another mean spirited divisive GOP campaign cycle.
In 1994 Newt Gingrich delivered the House to the GOP after 40 years in exile based on what was then referred to as the "angry white male vote". The 2009-10 GOP game plan is beginning to look a lot like Newts 1994 strategy. Here is a walk through:
Phase one is to paint Justice Sotomayor as a crazed hot headed Latina that hates white guys. Obviously this is a nasty divisive, explosive, and dangerous phase that has potential for blow back. Keeping that in mind the suits in the official GOP have outsourced the hate to the talk radio and right wing cable circuit. GOP Senators that are in States with significant Latino populations will put on blue suits, white shirts with red ties, and denounce Rush and his cast of mini-me's in front of TV cameras. All the while the hate speech against Sotomayor will continue.
Phase two will be administered by GOP members of the Senate. After weeks of distancing themselves from the racism and sexism of their top spokesmen GOP Senators will take Rush Limbaugh's talking points, edit out some of the nastier adjectives and use them as the basis for their questions in Sotomayor's confirmation hearings.
The Repub Senators goal will be to distill all of Sotomayor's years of judicial experience to one case: the Rici case. The Rici case has the drama and divisiveness that the GOP has in past election cycles driven to victory. Rici involves Anglo and Latino firemen suing New Haven after the Connecticut city came to believe that an employment test that plaintiffs had nailed was discriminatory.
GOP Senators having laundered racist attacks on Sotomayor through their hate radio cartel will be free to focus on Rici, one opinion of Sotomayor's of over 300, out of "concerns" they will claim they have based on "reports".
Phase 3 is the where the real goal emerges: the 2010 reelection campaigns. Having framed the Obama Administration and the Democratic Senate as an Anglo-male hating institution Newt's old GOP playbook is ready for a return to prime time. The problem is that it is ready for primetime 1994. The 2009-10 audience demo has changed which leads us to:
The predictable outcome -GOP losses in any states that have marginally significant Latino voting populations at all levels of government.
I hate Newt's GOP playbook but I have to admit it pays off for Latino Democratic outreach.
Mario Solis-Marich is a talk show host that can be heard over the air AM 760 in Denver , KTLK AM 1150 in Los Angeles and worldwide at www.GoToMario.com.