Al G is Back!

No, not Ali G. Al G, as in Alberto Gonzales. Sorry to disappoint you.

That's right, the former attorney general leaps out of hiding today with an anodyne opinion piece in the LA Times. The piece is full of painful syntax and forgettable suggestions about how to woo the Latino vote this fall. Let us now mock it:

Those numbers are already having a political impact. Just how strong it may be could become clear in November. In a close presidential election, the Latino vote could decide the outcome. For example, in the closely contested strategic states of New Mexico, Florida and Colorado, Latinos make up, respectively, 37%, 14% and 12% of eligible voters.

In a close presidential election, don't lots of demographic groups collectively decide the outcome? Also, aren't we overusing derivatives of "close" a little bit here? Shouldn't "closely contested strategic" be replaced by a simpler modifier, like "important" or "vital." And doesn't the sentence, "Just how strong it may be could become clear in November," seem like something that would be written by a 12-year-old?

They need to connect with and make use of surrogates, as the Democrats have done with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. They need to make more contact, an effort both parties launched last weekend, when they spoke to a conference of Latino elected and appointed officials in Washington. More important, they need to embrace policies from the Latino point of view.

Make contact? Is he talking about baseball? Is there a runner on third with one out? Also, the point about Villaraigosa is the extent of the specific political advice Gonzales offers, which amounts to, Stick a Latino face out there for everyone to see. He's not exactly splitting the atom here.

The conventional wisdom is that Latinos vote Democratic. But not necessarily... In 2004, President Bush won a historic percentage of the Latino vote (more than 40%). By 2006, again according to the Pew Hispanic Center, the Democrats' edge in partisan allegiance had dropped to 21%.

The second sentence is a poorly worded fragment that could easily be combined with the first. That is all.

Now, the conclusion:

I believe that the candidate who will win Latino votes is the one who understands that desire and who will engage the issue of racial equality for Americans of all colors. It's politically wise. More important, it is the right thing to do for our nation.

First of all, strictly speaking, both candidates will win "Latino votes." Hell, even Bob Barr will. If the author in fact is writing about winning the Latino bloc, rather than just enough of Latinos to make "votes" plural, then the suggestion that it is up for grabs would seem to be contradicted by the previous section, as well as reality. As Gonzales shows, George W. Bush, under much more advantageous circumstances for the GOP in 2004 than those facing McCain today, didn't get within sneezing distance of half. And Obama, despite a rocky primary relationship with Latinos, now enjoys a 40-point advantage over McCain, according to ABC.