Phoenix Republican Jim Deakin believes he represents the real mainstream of his party, and so he’s aiming to upset Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in next year’s state primary. But I hope most party activists understand our country’s geography and history better than Deakin apparently does.

In a news release today, Deakin seeks to weigh in on racial politics and President Barack Obama’s nomination of appellete judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Deakin goes about it in an odd way, by suggesting Sotomayor’s family is from the foreign country of … Puerto Rico.

First off, Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, as in New York City, as in the first national capital of the United States. So any attempt to somehow taint her homegrown nationality by tossing around the word “emigrate” is in of itself insulting.

Yes, her parents were from Puerto Rico. While not one of the 50 states, Puerto Rico has been a fully functioning U.S. territory or commonwealth since 1917.  Every native is a full-blooded U.S. citizen and moving to or from Puerto Rico is nearly as easy as spending the summer in San Diego.

Sure, in prior centuries, Puerto Rico was subject to the rule of several foreign countries and Spanish is prominently spoken on the island. But that’s the history of more than one U.S. state as well.

Republicans are debating this summer among themselves just hard to challenge Sotomayor’s appointment, given her easy confirmations to the federal bench in the past and the fact that Obama will insist on liberal credentials for any potential replacement.

Deakin’s comments (as you can see below) add little that’s constructive to that debate:

If Jim Deakin were the Senator from the great State of Arizona he would have one question for Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
In several of your speeches over the years you have said that a Latino Woman would make better decisions than an Old White Man.
Your family emigrated to the United States of America from Puerto Rico.
Why did your family migrate from a country where the laws are written by Latino Men and Women to the United States of America where the US Constitution was written by a bunch of OLD WHITE GUYS?
Jim Deakin is a candidate for US Senate from Arizona in the 2010 Elections.

For the record, the U.S. Constitution generally is in effect in Puerto Rico as well. And many Puerto Ricans moved to the New York and other American cities shortly after U.S. annexation because the island was dirt-poor with few jobs early in the 20th century, sort of like what happened in the 1930s in Oklahoma.