Ya beat me to it. So, so very rich for this creep to utter these words.
Obama has very little to lose at this point. It’s not as if the Democrats have been all that supportive of him. Remember Stupak’s last stand?
Democrats simply have to articulate, and insist upon, the things people want. No need to be extreme or intransigent. Just be clear.
Obama: I plan to not deport lower risk illegal immigrants.
GOP: Oh, yeah? Then we will stop you by defunding the Immigration Department!
Obama: So, then I won’t have money to pay agents to deport anyone?
Still waiting for a good reason why it was decided to wait to do anything about this until AFTER the election. Simply the continuation of an extremely “risk averse” tactical disposition that leads to the biggest risk of all-a passive position with no counterplay?
Fear to do a bloody thing that might actually mobilize or enthuse a segment of one’s own base due terror that it might mobilize elements of the other?
Right! If you “calculate” too many what, if, and ands, and try to control the future (e.g., next presidential election), all you’re doing is playing with yourself.
But WHICH Hispanics…and how many of them are there relative to the total Hispanic population?
Unfortunately so.
“Cunning is what counts in this life; I’m telling you straight: they’re cunning, and I’m cunning. If only ‘them’ and ‘us’ had the same ideas we’d get on like a house on fire, but they don’t see eye to eye with us and we don’t see eye to eye with them, so that’s how it stands and how it will always stand. The one fact is that all of us are cunning, and because of this there’s no love lost between us.”
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.
no, Mr. President, in every case, do what is right. But unfortunately for the R’s that means defying their abject nativism and prejudices.
That was a great article Sahil.
Look at the bright side - as TPM noted several days ago: “A GOP Senate Could Help Obama With This Item On His Agenda” ( accompanied by an inspiring photo of two broadly smiling politicians)
So the GOP is going to be very helpful in passing the “Obama’s NAFTA” ( and probably the Keystone Pipeline), which Obama and Hillary have been pursuing for YEARS.
So, that’s a WIN, right? Agenda item ticked off. What’s not to like?
Correction. Thanks to the people who couldn’t bother to vote, it will happen.
Ether President Obama has finally learned something from wasting his first two years in office or he’s resigned to doing what must be done. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking you must try to please everyone when it’s actually paramount for a leader to move the nation to a better place.
It might be necessary to cause another Constitutional crisis over immigration. Let the Republicans show their true colors and waste more time and money on an impeachment trial. They still are embarrassed by their failed Johnson and Clinton trials as well as the Nixon resignation.
If Republicans convicted a minority president, it would be like putting the last nail in the party’s coffin as demographics are against them long term.
Conservatives just can’t help but act like greedy, irresponsible children who have to pull temper tantrums and still can’t get their way as their failed ideology goes against democracy, capitalism and the Constitution. They are the champions of lost causes. Republicans don’t have the guts to admit it or fix what they broke. They let the barbarians take over.
We’ve had another midterm election that positions the GOP for its ultimate, final resting place. .
Since I’m seeing pearl-clutching references to the “record” hispanic vote for Republicans, lets unpack this a little.
And the best place to start is yesterday’s NYT article, which opens with: “Hispanics voted nearly two to one for Democratic candidates on Tuesday just as they did in the 2010 midterm elections, a national exit poll shows. In a number of key races, however, they voted more heavily Republican, pointing to a strategy for Republicans in the presidential contest in 2016.”
This is followed by a breakdown of various races like Udall-Gardner, Brownback-Davis, Abbott-Davis. In which the GOP candidate, while still winning a minority of the hispanic vote, greatly outperformed their national average.
Taking one example, Udall-Gardner, we see why and how this could work.“Mr. Gardner generally avoided the contentious issue of immigration but campaigned in Latino neighborhoods with a message of job creation and smaller government.”
Why was this a relatively easy strategy for Gardner? Because Udall ALSO chose to generally avoid the issue, and the national “strategy” (if you want to dignify it with that name) also played along with doing it this way.
So-YES, if you give your opponent the luxury of playing into a frigging empty net, they will often score.
Yes, they think they’re on a roll with Latinos in light of the exit polling, so if Obama advances with his Exec order the R’s will spend 2015 making new enemies with Hispanic voters.
Love it!! 2014 electorate 8% Hispanic 2016 will be 12%…please further poison the water between the GOP and Hispanics…
P,S. The angry white male demographic was already in the 2014 electorate…guess what there will be 45 million more voters in 2016…
Go President Obama! I voted, and I had your back and still do. Too bad, democrats did not vote. Some democrats did not get what they wanted and stayed home. Bull crap. I have voted my whole life thru thick and thin and I have not gotten everything I ever wanted either, but didn’t stop me from casting a vote. You don’t vote, you don’t get to gripe. I am mad at democrats who stayed home. I am ashamed of my party.
“Make no mistake,” Obama said of his agenda. “These policies are on the ballot. Every single one.”
And with that statement, Obama himself pre-ordained Tuesday night’s result as a mandate to rule by the Republicans. Well done, O!
The banksters who want cheap labor and the teabuggers who want “them” “sent back home” will never agree.
There will be a battle alright…
Lefties need a bit of a reality check when it comes to “the Latino vote”: it’s a bit like speaking in the name of the “silent majority.” Latino voters do not turn out in the vast numbers that are forecasted, and the blame is not on voter ID laws: Latinos just don’t show up. You can point to demographics here and there, with justification, but overall, Latinos tend to be socially conservative and are not going to show up en masse thankful for immigration reform. You can sit and point to young Latino voters, but hedging bets on the “youth vote”? Again, it’s like expecting the “silent majority” to actually do something. We’ve seen that’s not the case.
They have to fight immigration reform, because that’s the only way they can keep enough of an Old Scared White Folks edge to keep getting elected. It has shit to do with jobs and everything to do with skewing the demographic (“voter fraud” the same thing).