More GOP Infighting on Immigrant Party Leaders

If you want to laugh, stroll over to the Flash Report (Jon can use the hits), and see how Mr. Fleischman continues to poo-poo this story.

Jon is like a traffic cop after a bad accident.  “Move along. Move along.  Nothing to see here.”  Even Matt Cunningham has the story downplayed on OC Blog.

Right.

Here’s the story about the state’s GOP leaders – both immigrants – and how they are angry about how comments made by former state GOP spokeswoman Karen Hanretty has fueled this fire.

But before another Republican can tell Hanretty to shut her piehole, she’s right about these hires being an abuse of the HB-1 Visas, typically used by tech companies to attract engineering talent with a very particular skill set; the folks that are legitimately hard to find.  How tech-savvy is the GOP if they can’t find an American to do the sort of work they (and by they, I mean their Austrialian born executive director) hired a Canadian for?

At least when the Pledge of Alligence is said, the officials in the Democratic Party can all stand and recite it as American citizens, eh? But by all means, have another Foster’s or Molson’s and figure it all out.

GOP official angry about story

A story in Thursday’s Chronicle about the California Republican Party’s use of a coveted H-1B visa to hire a political consultant from Canada apparently hit a nerve. Only hours after the paper hit the doorstep — or, for the more tech-oriented crowd, the Web — a GOP leader fired off a missive slamming the Chronicle and a Republican commentator critical of the hiring.

“The press is trying to portray Republicans as racist (see the “brown menace” quote in the story) when we discuss illegal immigration,” Michael Kamburowski, the party’s recently hired chief operating officer, said in a letter to the state party’s executive board, “yet when we promote individuals who have displayed great skills but who just happen to hail from another country, we are pegged as hypocrites.”

Of course Kamburowski has a dog in this fight, as an Australian citizen who also isn’t eligible to vote for the party he’s working for. Chris Matthews, the Canadian, is currently working as a consultant to the party, but will take over as director of research and political technology when his new visa takes effect in October.

Kamburowski also took a whack at Karen Hanretty, a former state GOP spokeswoman who told the Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci that it’s embarrassing for California Republicans “to bring people from the outside who don’t know the difference between Lodi and Lancaster.”

Kamburowski generally suggested that Hanretty will never be able to eat lunch in Washington again.

“This story would not have the ‘legs’ it does were it not for the role Karen Hanretty is playing in fanning it,” Kamburowski said in his letter. “I do not know Karen, but I find the spectacle of someone who has fed at the trough of the CRP (California Republican Party) behaving in this way despicable and sad. If she desires a career in Republican circles in Washington — she may find her career rather short-lived.”

The complaint didn’t stop Hanretty from going on CNN Wednesday afternoon and telling Lou Dobbs that the H-1B visas are used to hire highly skilled workers “and typically not political hacks.”

Hanretty called Kamburowski’s letter “a peculiar response to a leadership decision.”

“You attack someone personally when you want to deflect criticism,” she said in an interview on Thursday. “When you feel you have the moral high ground, you don’t need to change the subject.”

The letter wasn’t a threat to Hanretty, said Hector Barajas, a state GOP spokesman who suggested his former colleague is “trying to make a living by attacking other Republicans.”

“The Republican Party is in favor of legal immigrants,” he said.

One other Republican onlooker, who didn’t want his name used in the dustup, suggested that Kamburowski’s letter showed that he still has plenty to learn about politics in America.

When it comes to political attacks, “you don’t say it, you act on it.”