Kay Chooses NRA Over Hispanics

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has evidently decided she doesn't need any Hispanic votes in her race for the governorship of Texas next year. She has officially announced that she will not vote for Sonia Sotomayor to be a justice on the United States Supreme Court.

On Friday, she tried to explain away that vote before a Hispanic group. She gave a talk to the Texas Association of Mexican-American Chambers of Commerce. This group of businessmen (and women) is about the most conservative Hispanic group she's going to be able to find. If she can't get this group on her side, she's going to have a lot of trouble trying to win over other Hispanics.

And frankly, the group wasn't that impressed with her reason for voting against Sotomayor. She told the group that she was going to vote "no" because that's what the National Rifle Association (NRA) wanted her to do. The NRA is afraid that Sotomayor might be anti-gun, so they are lobbying against her on Capitol Hill.

So much for Hutchison being a moderate. Given a choice between supporting the Hispanic community or the gun lobby, she didn't hesitate to choose the NRA. In addition to this probably getting some NRA funds for her campaign, I guess it helps her play to the right-wing racist base of the Texas Republican Party.

But if she gets past Perry in the Republican primary, she may find that the "no" vote on Sotomayor will hurt her in the general election. With each passing year, the proportion of Hispanics grows in Texas. And with each election, it becomes more dangerous to write them off as unnecessary.

A majority of the Texas Republican Party may be right-wing racists, but you need a lot more than that to win a general election. The farther to the right that Hutchison goes to beat Perry in the primary election, the closer she's going to make the Fall's general election

The 2010 election could turn out to be a good one for Texas Democrats.