Sunday, November 17, 2002
Supporter Praises Slimy Colorado BE Campaign
A bilingual education supporter, O. Ricardo Pimentel, actually praised the slimy campaign to derail English immersion in Colorado:
In Colorado, a big part of the message was, essentially, that Spanish-speaking children would be mainstreamed too soon. The implicit message: Your own kids will suffer because they will be in classes with kids who don't speak, read or write English well. . . . Yes, "chaos in the classroom," as the commercials were tagged, probably wasn't intended to appeal to Colorado voters' sense of fairness. They had the effect, however, of broadening the issue. Bilingual education was no longer just a "Latino problem." And it also helped to broaden this issue that important opinion leaders in Colorado opposed the initiative because of the facts.
This "it doesn't matter how you play the game" approach to politics is proof of the desperation and the intellectual bankruptcy of the pro-bilingual education side. They have learned that facts are not their friends. They claimed repeal of bilingual education would hurt California children. Test scores increased. They claim immigrant parents support bilingual education. Oops, wrong again.
So Colorado's pro-bilingual education forces turned a blind eye as a car owned by an anti-bilingual education leader was firebombed while it sat parked in her driveway. They filled the airwaves with false claims. And they played the race card for good measure.
Pimentel suggests Colorado is a lesson for bilingual education activists nationwide. There is another lesson from the 2002 elections they might profitably consider: a demonstrated willingness to win by hook or by crook is not a recipe for long-term political success. As Sally Quinn notes in another context:
The Dems, by contrast, cast themselves as the party with the big hearts, the integrity, the inclusiveness, the compassion. They were the we-may-lose-but-we'll-still-be-able-to-look-at-ourselves-in-the-mirror crowd.
Bill Clinton ended all that. He promoted the notion that morals didn't matter. Winning mattered. The Democrats were so eager for a big win they decided to play by Clinton's rules, and for a while it worked. . . .
And then the Democrats started losing, including most of the candidates -- including Democratic gubernatorial candidates Kathleen Kennedy Townsend of Maryland and Bill McBride of Florida -- for whom Bill Clinton campaigned. Sure, the election result was about the war on terrorism and Iraq and patriotism and the tax cuts to some degree. But mostly it was about the Democrats not being what they once said they were.
Ends matter. So do means.
|posted by Jim on 1:04 AM|
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