We need a broader party. If we're not doing better with millennials and women and Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans and others, we will have a tough time being a majority party at the national level.
In Atlanta, with a large African-American population, Sosa is often considered a black man. In Miami and Los Angeles, with larger Hispanic populations, he is a Latino man, and the black label is rejected as robbing Hispanics of a hero.
The Republican Party views Hispanics in terms of market share: Who are they? How do we reach them? Democrats still view us in terms of quotas.
That's the underlying tactic of the Obama administration in 2012: push the war on women, the war on the middle class, the war on gay people, and the war on Hispanics, and hope it will carry the day.
President Obama is committed to Hispanics and migrants.
I grew up in Harlem. My grandmother was one of the best cooks around, but the first thing she did on Sunday mornings when she started cooking a daylong meal was to take a big block of lard from the back of the refrigerator and throw it into the pan. I know how Hispanics buy their food, and it is not always nutritious.
I actually support President Obama's initiatives on early childhood. He has appointed me as a commissioner to consult his administration on educational excellence for Hispanics in the U.S. We try to find ways to improve the education system for Hispanics in America, to achieve excellence.
The states that have large in-migrations of Hispanics are Florida, Texas and California. And Florida and Texas are way above average in educational achievement, while California's the lowest, just about.
The immigration issue is a gateway issue for Hispanics, no doubt about it.