November 21, 2006

Arnoldo Torres, Arnold Schwarzenegger's Latino outreach director

The largely wrong and illogical article "Schwarzenegger gains among Latinos" by Aurelio Rojas will be featured here later, but for now consider this interesting snippet:

Arnoldo Torres, the Schwarzenegger campaign's Latino outreach director who briefed him before the July 24 meeting [with La Opinion], praised the governor for acknowledging he was wrong about the Minutemen and Proposition 187.

"The governor had the (guts) to say, 'You know what? I said things that I shouldn't say (and) I don't support racism,' " said Torres, a former political analyst for Univision and past executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Obviously, Arnie is little more than political tofu or a programmable talking doll. And, just as obviously, supporting the Minuteman Project or Proposition 187 is not "racist". In fact, a majority of Hispanics supported the latter two months before the election. Supporting those is indeed "racist" if you redefine the term to mean "opposition to illegal immigration and/or the far-left."

LULAC was at one time apparently a patriotic organization that supported assimilation. In recent years they've morphed into a far-left group, and they have a recent history of supporting illegal immigration.

In addition to what Rojas discloses, Torres spoke at a session called "Mexico and Aztlan: La Fundacion Solidaridad Mexicano Americana" together with noteworthies such as Richard Griswold del Castillo from San Diego State. And, he supposedly got a bill passed allowing Mexican doctors to practice at clinics in California without being licensed here.

And, from 2003 to 2005 he was also a member of the Institute for Mexicans Abroad ("Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior", "IME"), an advisory panel for the Mexican president. In fact, he's got his own entry at their site (cache of ime.gob.mx/ccime/comisiones/asuntos_politicos.htm) (partial machine translation):

From Sacramento, California. Consultant in political subjects. He is Executive Director of [California Hispanic Health Care Association] (CHHCA); of United Latin American Citizens has been executive National Director of the League (LULAC). He is partner of "Torres & Torres", Policy Consultants, in Sacramento; member of the Coalition of Fairness for Minority Groups. That represents non-profit organizations who provide services of health and indigenous community education in California.

UPDATE: Torres is apparently no longer on the CCIME, and whether he has current links is unknown. Here's the list of current IME advisors, which doesn't include him: www.ime.gob.mx/ccime/directorios/dir_ccime_06_09.htm . In February 2007 he was described as a "former advisor" and was chiding Arnie over comments he made on the previously-secret audio tapes.

Posted to California at November 21, 2006 11:23 AM

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