Ethnic political correctness has tripped-up Democrat Congresswoman and Senate candidate Loretta Sanchez, and forced her to apologize for letting out a pretend Indian war whoop at a Democrat state convention in California. CNN reports:

Sanchez was ad-libbing at a California Democratic party convention in Anaheim, when she made a stereotypical Native American 'war cry.

Raising her hand to her lips, she let out about two seconds of it.

"I'm going to his office, thinkin' that I'm gonna go meet with woo-woo-woo-woo, right? 'Cause he said 'Indian American,'" she said, using the gesture to try to discern between Indian Americans -- with ancestry from India's subcontinent -- and Native Americans.

Many in the audience at the Indian American caucus reacted with silence.

Uduak-Joe Ntuk was recording Sanchez's stump on his cell phone camera and shared the video with CNN affiliate KCRA.

 

Many in the room found the gesture offensive, Ntuk said, including him.

"I was shocked and appalled that she would make the disparaging comments about Native Americans that way," he said. "It's just very undemocratic."

Sanchez further beclowned herself afterward: she ran away from a reporter trying to question her.

It is more than ironic that ethnic sensitivity tripped her up, because she has played the Hispanic card to get her House seat and hopes to ride it to the Senate. Her political career foundered until she ditched her married name, Loretta Brixey, under which she had been defeated in her first run for political office, and took her maiden name Sanchez in a run for the House, winning that seat narrowly.

Now, in the run to replace retiring Senator Barbara Boxer, she will face rising star Democrat Kamala Harris, who is mixed Jamaican and Indo-American and considered smart and potential presidential material by many national Democrats. It would be a test of ethnic constituencies in California, where Hispanics vastly outnumber blacks and Desis combined.  

You are in no danger of running into Sanchez at a Mensa meeting. It will be interesting to watch how merit and ethnicity play out in the 2016 Senate race.

Elizabeth Warren has had no comment.