Is Governor Crist Risking the Latino Vote by Expressing Concerns over Sotomayor?
by: Ricardo González

---this commentary by Ricardo is in reference to this published report---

Governor Crist is a savvy politician and his expression of "concern" about the confirmation of Judge Sotomayor is a brilliant political move by him. Follow my thoughts on this below. By the way, I am not endorsing his "concerns" over her, I am simply giving you a political analysis.

He has a future matchup with former GOP Speaker of the House in Florida, Marco Rubio, in the Republican senatorial primary which will determine which Republican will run for the vacant seat in Florida. Rubio, of Cuban descent, is a highly conservative Latino who appeals to the right-wing of the party.

On May 26th Marco Rubio wrote the following on Twitter, "Sotomayor deserves fair hearing but her statements about court making policy is cause for concern. Ct should interpret not create law." Marco Rubio also expressed "concern." Rubio also was quoted as saying, ""The role of the Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution, not to make law. Given this, I am deeply concerned about Judge Sotomayor's past comment that the courts are 'where policy is made' and look forward to hearing her explanation and defense of that view."

Crist loses nothing here with Republicans regarding Sotomayor in that his Latino opponent has opening expressed "deep concern." He does, however, gain politically here with the right-wing of the party by associating the Sotomayor concerns with the Second Ammendment right to bear arms. This was a deft move on his part. Again, Crist is generally seen as a moderate in Florida and needs to shore up the right-wing of the Republican party to stave off the hungry Rubio campaign.

In Crist's typical moderate fashion, he does not "oppose" Sotomayor, he simply has "concerns." He will be able to flip on a syntactical switch with Latinos in a general election for Senator against a Democratic opponent who will try to brand him as anti-Latino. Rubio, however, with his "deeply concerned" line and by virtue of the fact that he was the first Latino of prominence to express concerns about Sotomayor would sink him with Puerto Ricans especially. There is a huge difference between opposing someone and expressing a "concern" about them. Crist, to date, has not opposed her.

Another point to understand here is that those most "offended" by his statement of "concern" will be Puerto Ricans who tend to vote mostly Democrat anyway. This is especially true in the Central Florida area where Puerto Ricans reside in large numbers. Many (perhaps most) of these Puerto Ricans migrated from New York, not Puerto Rico. Winning them over to vote Republican will be difficult by any objective criteria. If all Crist lost here was the already lost Puerto Rican vote then politically he doesn't lose much with Latinos.

Cubans, may go with Rubio in the standoff in support of their native son but in a general election will side with Govenor Crist as the Sotomayor issue is not a hot-button issue with them.

I don't know the Governor's true views on Sotomayor but he certainly played a winning political hand on this one.

Ricardo

Ricardo González is Founder and Executive Director of Bilingual America and Publisher of The González Report. He is also Senior Teacher at SpeakSpanish.com. He can be reached at 1.888.850.1555 or via this form.