Binders full of Hispanics?

“The political irony of Obama’s situation has got to tickle Republicans,” writes Jill Lawrence at the National Journal in her spotlight of a new problem for Barack Obama in his second-term appointments.  Lawrence says to forget about the lack of women in the new round of high-ranking nominees, and start looking at the dearth of [...]

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Initiative?

As Ed pointed out yesterday, Sen. Rubio is hatching a plan to ‘charge up the middle’ on illegal immigration — and it might not be a moment too soon. The White House has already indicated that they are planning to go full-throttle on prioritizing the immigration issue in a second term, and it looks like [...]

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Pathway?

I can’t understand why Senate Democrats would agree to this. Republicans are in a panic over the Latino vote; liberals have never had them in a more vulnerable position than they do now. If you’re Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer, why let the GOP off easy by settling for a limited amnesty that helps Republicans [...]

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Outreach.

Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), three key Republican players on immigration, told The Hill they’re ready to start working on broad-based reforms next year that could include a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States. All three are expected to be key [...]

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"You can't say to someone, 'I'd really like to get your vote over jobs, and by the way, we're kicking your grandmother out.'"

Most readers seem to disagree with my perspective on the necessity of resolving the immigration-reform issue while we still have a say in how it gets implemented. Newt Gingrich, however, sees the same problem that I do, which is that the issue is an albatross around the neck of the GOP as it tries to [...]

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Or should border security get held hostage for another four years?

Has the time come to cut our losses on immigration reform and try to get what we can in a deal? In my column today at The Week, I argue that the prospect of another four years of divided governance in Washington means another four years of unsecured borders and a broken visa system without [...]

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Change?

That Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of the electorate and a key swing vote in several toss-up states was well-known within the Romney campaign. That Republican opposition to immigration reform helped Democrats increase their appeal in the Hispanic community and take back the House in 2006 was also well established. Yet Romney’s team cultivated an [...]

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"Showing a lack of maturity as well as a lack of judgment."

Earlier today, I participated in a conference call with Senator John McCain, arranged by Mitt Romney’s campaign as an answer session after the debate.  McCain came out attacking Obama for several statements made during the debate, both in McCain’s brief opening remarks and the Q&A session that came afterward.  He vented particular anger over Barack [...]

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The question also applies to... er, Democrats in general?

It seems that last month‘s announcement of President Obama’s absolutely not political “policy shift” on his Homeland Security Department’s “discretionary enforcement” had an impact that sent some ripples through the Hispanic community. According to a new WSJ/NBC/Telemundo poll, Mr. Obama has since widened his lead over Mitt Romney in terms of Hispanic support: A new [...]

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Middle-aged and senior enthusiasm up.

In 2008, Barack Obama rode a wave of youth-vote enthusiasm for “Hope and Change” to a seven-point win in the national popular vote.  A new poll from Gallup shows that the hope has pretty much dissipated — and Obama might not like the change that has resulted:  Fifty-eight percent of U.S. registered voters aged 18 [...]

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Hmmm.

Both parties and both Presidential candidates have focused intently on the growing Hispanic demographic in the US in hopes of either maintaining an edge (Barack Obama) or eroding it (Mitt Romney).  Both candidates addressed the NALEO conference this month, and both regularly run Spanish-language ads to woo these voters in the Southwest and in Florida.  [...]

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Bummer.

Ten days ago, Barack Obama tried to solidify his standing among Hispanic voters by taking executive action to offer a temporary decrease in deportations, along the lines of his DREAM Act proposal.  Clearly, the President wants to gain votes and stoke enthusiasm with this end run around Congress in this traditional Democratic constituency — but [...]

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Uh huh.

Tough-minded Republicans fear monger and the dear Democrats pander, but nobody so much as moves to make a move to really reform immigration policy — or so says Sen. Marco Rubio. In a speech to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials today, Rubio said politicians have two strong incentives to do nothing about [...]

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Mission accomplished?

The establishment media will tell you Obama’s new non-enforcement of immigration law is a political masterstroke. “It’s a trap!“ for Republicans, it is written. A flash poll proclaims it’s overwhelmingly popular with likely voters. The WaPo’s Aaron Blake, while adding more nuance than most along the way, stresses the conventional wisdom: President Obama’s announcement Friday [...]

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Borders.

Mitt Romney is refusing to say that he would overturn President Barack Obama’s new policy allowing some young illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. The Republican presidential candidate tells CBS” ”Face the Nation” that if he’s president, Obama’s executive order “would be overtaken by events … by virtue of my putting in place [...]

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Lawlessness.

Mr. Obama said that he was changing the deportation policy because “it’s the right thing to do.” Translation: It’s the politically expedient thing to do in an election year in which Hispanic voters are expected to play a key role in determining whether he wins a second term. Hispanic voter registration is down considerably from [...]

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"If I'm president, we'll do our very best to have that kind of long-term solution."

BuzzFeed notes, correctly, that the most important part here is what he didn’t say. He continued: “I think the actions that the president took today make it more difficult to reach that kind of long term solution because an executive order, of course, is a short-term matter that can be reversed by subsequent presidents.”… “I’d [...]

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“We are a better nation than one that expels innocent young kids.”

Contrary to popular belief, this shift doesn’t appear to stem from any new executive orders from The One. It comes from a directive issued by Janet Napolitano (at Obama’s behest, of course) instructing DHS to defer action on all young illegals who meet the DREAM-like criteria specified in the directive. That’s why O is insisting [...]

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Jajajajaja

The SEIU (one of the country’s largest unions) and Priorities USA (the super PAC run by ex-White House official Bill Burton) have teamed up to the tune of $4 million, putting together an ad that focuses on Mitt Romney’s campaign-trail gaffes to demonstrate how ostensibly out-of-touch Romney is with the concerns of Latino voters. The [...]

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Resonance.

For weeks, the Obama campaign has labored mightily to paint Mitt Romney as out of touch with middle America, a member of the One Percent that destroys companies and middle-class jobs.  How has that strategy worked?  Gallup’s poll data shows that Romney leads Barack Obama narrowly among voters who earn between $36,000 and $90,000 per [...]

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Outreach.

Ronald Brownstein asks whether Hispanic immigration trends will hurt Obama in 2012, and comes up with the relatively obvious answer that they will not, as new immigrants are a tiny part of the electorate in any given year. The so-called experts agree that immigration trends are a longer-term issue (though we should note that at [...]

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Dreams.

“House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) poured cold water Thursday on efforts by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to advance immigration reform by suggesting that such a plan would not be able to pass the GOP-led House this year. “Asked by a reporter whether he thought the House could pass an immigration measure this year that [...]

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Will those who stay become more Republican?

At the time Mitt Romney made a reference to “self-deportation” through tougher employer and immigration enforcement in a January debate, he got roundly criticized for believing that illegals would choose to leave the US.  Today, National Journal says Romney has been vindicated by a new study of immigration from and to Mexico.  For the first [...]

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Indignation.

If you don’t know what this is about, Univision’s Tumblr will catch you up more quickly than I can explain. Like Ace, I wonder what the breakdown is percentage-wise between people who are genuinely offended by what Messina said, people who are ginning up indignation because they want to watch a ruthless Democratic partisan hack [...]

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Talking points.

When a Democratic President loses Chris Matthews … where else can he turn? Matthews rips MSNBC analyst John Heilemann on the air for regurgitating incorrect White House talking points during a discussion of the contraception mandate when Heilemann claims that the HHS order is the same as in 28 states now. Not true, says Matthews, [...]

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