California GOP Fills Key Post with Canadian, Eh
If you've got a really tough job to fill, and you just can't find the right American, there's only one thing to do -- hire a Canadian. Beauty, eh.
That's just what the California Republican Party has done. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the GOP hired Albertan Christopher Matthews for the post of state deputy political director "through a coveted H-1B visa, a program favored by Silicon Valley tech firms that is under fire for displacing skilled American workers."
Matthews was hired for the job by Michael Kamburowski, an Australian, who is the state GOP's chief operations officer. (Although Kamburowski is a permanent U.S. resident in the process of obtaining American citizenship, he can't vote either.) And with so much in the news these days about immigration, it didn't take long for critics to point out that it makes state GOP officials seem like a bunch of hosers -- saying they couldn't find an American for the job after many Republicans have been critical of businesses that say they need to hire Mexican immigrants because Americans don't want the jobs.
While, on one hand, it would be hypocritical of me to knock the choice -- I am, after all, from the Great White North myself (although I became an American citizen in 2000) -- on the other hand, it does seem a bit of a stretch to hire a Canadian to help run part of a political operation in a state (and country) where he or she can't even vote.
1:14 PM ET | 06-15-2007 | permalink
