RNC Candidate Causes Immigration Stir With Seriously Offensive Song

The race for the next chairman of the Republican National Committee is being waged along lines that separate the party into factions: social conservatives vs. moderates; South vs. North, outside Washington vs. the insider crowd.

In this context, Melissa Merz of NDN reports that as part of his already controversial holiday CD, candidate Chip Saltsman included a song called "The Star Spanglish Banner," and that should be considered news. The song is a generally derisive take on Latino immigrants, composed by Paul Shanklin, the same musical comedian who penned "Barack the Magic Negro."

(This YouTube video is not the version Saltsman distributed -- his was an audio CD.)

Saltsman has contended that the whole thing was meant as a good-humored, albeit ill-conceived, joke. But it hits at the core of what observers inside and outside of the GOP see as a major party problem: Their incredible failure to win Latino votes in the 2008 election.