What Was Alex Sink Thinking? (Updated)

I bet Alex Sink really wishes she could take this quote back.

"We have a lot of employers over on the beaches that rely upon workers and especially in this high-growth environment, where are you going to get people to work to clean our hotel rooms or do our landscaping?"

Alex Sink sees Hispanic people as cleaning maids and landscapers. How about future corporate executives or political leaders. Sink doesn't dream big.

Update: Dave Weigel provides context and the entire quote of Alex Sink's statement. Turns out the outrage over Sink's statement is much ado about nothing. Sink stressed the need for immigrants to have better opportunities. Sink told the story of the child of illegal immigrants who became a high school valedictorian and is now an attorney.

Immigration reform is important in our country. It's one of the main agenda items of the beaches' chamber of commerce, for obvious reasons, because we have a lot of employers over on the beaches that rely upon workers, and especially in this high-growth environment, where are you going to get people to work to clean our hotel rooms or do our landscaping? And we don’t need to put those employers in a position of hiring undocumented and illegal workers.

I believe that the Senate came together in a bipartisan way to forge a solution. It was a very tough negotiation, and Sen. Marco Rubio was a participant in that, and one of the leaders, and members of his own party has even come against him. For every example that you hear, I think about the high school valedictorian -- I believe he lives in this district now. High school valedictorian.

He was brought here when he was a young man, 9 or 10 years old. He didn’t choose to come here. His parents brought him. He was undocumented. And what does he do? How does he get an education? He did everything right. He became an incredible student. He even eventually ended up going to law school and becoming a lawyer. But right now he can't practice law because of his undocumented status. That’s not right. We need to bring these people out the shadows so that they're paying into Social Security, paying into Medicare, paying federal income taxes, so that they're not security issues. But they have to earn their way. So we need immigration reform and I would definitely join with Democrats and Republicans in the House and pass immigration reform as soon as possible.

I'm not the world's biggest Alex Sink fan but I do owe her an apology for not properly fact-checking her statement. Dave Jolly and the Republican Party of Florida should stop accusing Sink of racism.