Democrat Challenger Says Gov. Susana Martinez Lacks A ‘Latino Heart’ [Video]

The Democrat running against New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez in the November election declared during a speech at a fundraiser that “we know that Susana Martinez does not have a Latino heart.”

A Republican, Susana Martinez is the first woman ever to be elected governor of her state and the first Hispanic female governor in the U.S. She is also regarded as a possible presidential or vice presidential candidate for the GOP ticket in 2016.

Martinez, who is of Mexican heritage, was born in El Paso, Texas, which is located right at the border of both Mexico and New Mexico, and has lived in New Mexico since the mid 1980s. She served as District Attorney for Dona Ana County in New Mexico for 14 years prior to successfully running for governor against then-Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, the Democrat candidate. As The Inquisitr previously reported earlier this year, Santa Fe businessman Alan Webber, who was then running (unsuccessfully as it turned out) in the Democrat primary for governor, said that “we need to send [Martinez] back to wherever she really came from…”

In the 2014 general election, her adversary is state Attorney General Gary King, the son of a former governor, who seems to be clairvoyant as to what is contained in a person’s heart, which may also be a sign of desperation. RealClearPolitics polling data has consistently given Martinez a solid lead in her reelection bid.

Referencing a previous speaker at the fundraiser in question, King declared that “She said you can’t go out there and just vote for somebody for governor because they have a Latino surname. She said you have to look at them and find out if they have a Latino heart. And we know that Susana Martinez does not have a Latino heart.” See embed below.

Calling attention to a 2010 anti-Martinez political ad that may have been offensive, University of New Mexico political science professor Gabe Sanchez told KRQE, Channel 13 in Albuquerque. that “A lot of people perceive that as race baiting and I think this is also in that gray area where a lot of Latino voters might say ‘wait a minute, I don’t feel comfortable with this.’ Making a statement like this implies that Latinos all think one way ideologically.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thTG30J8kOQ

Reacting to King’s comments, Gov. Martinez told KRQE that “You cannot lump a group of people together simply because of the color of their skin. I don’t know what [King] meant by that so I’m not going to call him a racist or anything. I just know what’s in my heart.”

In a statement, King tried to give context for his offensive remarks about Martinez:

I was quoting from a speech given by Dolores Huerta at the Voices for Children conference. I think it points out in an important way that Governor Martinez does not share the same value system as most New Mexico Hispanic families do, such as increasing the minimum wage and supporting our professional educators in the teaching of our children.”

The governor supported a compromise measure that would have raised New Mexico’s minimum wage to $8, which was rejected by the Democrats in the state legislature.

The Weekly Standard, which unearthed the video from the Gary King fundraiser, pointed out that “This isn’t the first racial attack Martinez has faced. In her successful 2010 run, she was dubbed by her opponents as ‘la Texana’– Spanish for ‘the Texan’ but a thinly veiled epithet meaning someone of Mexican and lower-class descent. Despite those efforts, she won her race, even earning 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.”

Susana Martinez cut perhaps the best political ad in the 2010 election cycle. Watch it here.

Separately, on two occasions Kentucky Democrats engaged in social media race-baiting about U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao. Chao, who has been married to McConnell for more than two decades, is the distinguished former U.S. Secretary of Labor in the George W. Bush administration. She is of Chinese heritage and was born in Taiwan, and is also the first Asian-American woman to serve in a U.S. president’s cabinet.

When it comes to matters relating ethnicity or diversity, the late Bob Grant, the talk radio pioneer, would often say that liberals are the ultimate hypocrites. Agree or disagree?

[top image credit: State of New Mexico]