This was published in yesterday's edition of El Diario/La Prensa
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And why not J.Lo for Senate?

 

Congressman Gary Ackerman evoked the name of Jennifer Lopez when arguing that Caroline Kennedy's star power alone does not qualify her to serve in the U.S. Senate. He had a valid point. But then the snarky New York Post went too far, insinuating that J. Lo's socioeconomic background made her an unsuitable senatorial candidate.

Please! White men like Arnold Schwartzenegger, Jesse "the Body" Ventura and Sonny Bono were elected with little more than visibility on their side. And never mind that Lopez's ascension from working-class obscurity to global prominence as the head of a multimedia empire demanded tenacity and savvy. Never mind that her by-the-bootstraps story is a modern-day Horatio Alger novel and inspires Americans of all backgrounds.

So here, I offer three more reasons to consider Lopez for U.S. Senate:

1. She can represent a broad constituency. From the working-class Castle Hill section of the Bronx to the affluent gates of Oyster Bay, Long Island, La Lopez has acquired intimate understanding of different socioeconomic groups from lived experience. And just like Barack Obama, Jennifer has proven she can and will care about issues that are important to communities other than her own. One need only look at the racial diversity of the men she has romanced – White (Ben Affleck), African American (Sean Combs) and Asian (Cris Judd) – to see she will advocate fiercely for all races.

2. She has all the education and experience she needs. The Post made an elitist indirecta about Jennifer dropping out of Baruch College. So what? Eliot Spitzer has degrees from Princeton and Harvard. Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey boasts degrees from Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown and the esteemed London School of Economics. And last month, 46 per cent of voters took Sarah Palin seriously as a vice presidential candidate when it took her five years and four colleges to acquire half the media savvy that Jennifer achieved on the job. Formal education has proven irrelevant in one's ability to govern. Let's not overestimate its importance when choosing someone to legislate.

3. She can sing at her inauguration. This will save New York taxpayers, hundreds of thousands of dollars—all the more needed in this economic meltdown.

Throw your hat in, Jenny!