Morning NewsTaco
Friday May 25, 2012
Will Latinos elect Obama? (Salon): A closer look at the numbers is not so reassuring for the president. Much of the growth in the Latino population has occurred in California, Texas, Illinois and New York, which are not likely to be competitive come Election Day. While the Latino population is growing fast, the Latino electorate is not.
At its best, nation makes immigrants fully American (San Antonio Express-News): the assimilation machine is growing creaky. Diversity is now an industry. Multiculturalism, an ideology hostile to the assimilationist ethic, is ascendant. An obsessive racialism is sanctioned by government, which draws congressional districts and awards contracts based on race. The universities and corporate America are in thrall to affirmative action.
Alabama’s bad road on immigration (Los Angeles Times): Apparently, Alabama lawmakers felt they hadn’t gone far enough last year when they enacted the most draconian immigration law in the nation, which, among other things, required schools to determine the immigration status of their students. Now, the Legislature has revised the law to ensure that it does further damage to the state’s reputation and stirs even more fear among Latinos.
Group seeks to define Obama as “worse than Joe Arpaio” on immigration (CBS News): Is President Obama “the most anti-immigrant president we’ve ever had?” That’s the bold claim being made by conservative Latino strategist Alfonso Aguilar, who is spearheading a new effort designed to diminish Latino support for Mr. Obama in the key swing state of Nevada ahead of the November elections.
Poll: Hispanic voters overwhelmingly support Obama (The Hill): Latino voters overwhelmingly support President Obama over Mitt Romney, according to a NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Telemundo poll released on Wednesday.
Mitt Romney: What Dream Act? (Huffington Post): Mitt Romney has said he supports finding a solution for undocumented students. But you wouldn’t know it from his Wednesday speech on education to Latino business leaders, where the issue went untouched, leaving some audience members concerned that he simply doesn’t have a plan.
Romney begins to stir in fight for U.S. Hispanic votes (Reuters/MSNBC): Republican U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney is launching a push to appeal to Hispanic voters but has far to go to reverse a huge lead that President Barack Obama holds with this key voting bloc.
Mitt Fenced in on Immigration (Mother Jones): When it comes to immigration policy, Mitt Romney has decided that discretion is the better part of valor. In his speech before Latino business leaders at the Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, Romney decided to avoid the whole immigration issue altogether.
What Romney Should Do About Immigration (The New York Times): Earlier this month, asked about Mitt Romney’s immigration policy, Bettina Inclan, the director of Hispanic outreach for the Republican National Committee, stumbled into the remark that “he’s still deciding what his position on immigration is.” While the campaign distanced itself from the gaffe immediately, the comment was actually good advice, even if unintentional.
Romney Seeks School-Choice Program Using Taxpayers’ Money (Bloomberg News/San Francisco Chronicle): Mitt Romney proposed a series of steps to overhaul the public education system, reigniting the debate over school choice as his campaign intensifies its effort to introduce the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to a general-election audience.
Marco Rubio: ‘Historic’ reasons for Obama’s wide lead among Hispanics (The Washington Post): “The reality is that there are communities in this country where there are Americans of Hispanic descent that have been Democrats for 20 or 30 years. Or they live in communities that are largely Democratic, and if you’re not part of the Democrat Party, well, you can’t participate in politics there. So, folks like that aren’t going to change their party affiliation in one election.”
Romney touting education plan in Philadelphia; Obama to Iowa (The Washington Post): Here’s a look at what is happening with each candidate and their campaigns Wednesday, courtesy of the White House press office and the PBS News Hour Political Calendar.
Civil rights leaders cry foul over poll closures (Associated Press/The Miami Herald): Sarasota-area civil rights leaders say plans to eliminate dozens of voting precincts in the southwest Florida county amounts to voter suppression.
The Growing Debate Over the Voting Rights Act (Color Lines): Articles on the Voting Rights Act are increasingly being filed in the “obituary” section, even though it’s less than 50 years old. Last week, a U.S. Court of Appeals decision ruled against Shelby County, Ala., which challenged the constitutionality of VRA’s Section 5. A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that it was still constitutional, but the dissenting judge, Senior Circuit Judge Stephen F. Williams, asked some tough questions that will need to be resolved before the Supreme Court inevitably looks at it again (In 2009, SCOTUS punted on this issue, but expressed serious skepticism about Section 5’s vitality.) Wrote Judge Williams in his dissent.
Texas voter ID case is in no way simple or easy (Fort Worth Star Telegram): People who say there shouldn’t be such a fuss over the Texas voter ID law are so sweetly naive. It’s no big deal, they say. We get asked to show a driver’s license all the time, from when we write a check or pay for something with a credit or debit card to when we check in at the doctor’s office. We do it without a second thought to show we are who we say we are.
Doggett runs hard for re-election in Latino district (Austin American-Statesman): U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett isn’t taking any chances. Ahead of Tuesday’s primary election to represent Congressional District 35, Doggett, D-Austin, has been campaigning hard to return to Washington.
Ted Cruz: The Next Latino Tea Party Star? (Fronteras Desk): He’s being touted as the Marco Rubio of Texas, an up-and-coming Latino politician with solid Tea Party backing. Ted Cruz, 41, who grew up in Houston as the son of Cuban refugees, knows he’s at the cusp of a major political breakthrough. He’s in a close race to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison as the next U.S. senator from Texas.
Gloves stay on in quiet NM Senate primary, but there’ll be a battle in November election (Associated Press/The Star Tribune): Four years ago, Heather Wilson gave up her House seat from New Mexico to make a run for a rare opening in the Senate. She lost in a bare-knuckled Republican primary. This year she has the luxury of sitting back as the Democratic successor to her House seat takes a similar gamble.
Dolores Huerta: Siempre En La Lucha: Latinos and Marriage Equality (Huffington Post): As soon as President Obama announced his support for marriage equality earlier this month, pundits and Republican strategists started speculating that the president’s pro-equality stance would cost him among Latino voters. They figured that most Latino voters are Catholic, therefore they must be willing to vote against the President because of his support of marriage equality.
Janet Murgia: A Disappointing Television Season for the Latino Community (Huffington Post): Last week, the Census Bureau released updated population numbers affirming once again that Latinos are America’s largest and fastest-growing minority. There are now 52 million of us residing in the U.S.–nearly one in five Americans. Perhaps the most striking statistic is that more than half of babies born in the U.S. are “minorities,” and minority children make up half of all children under the age of five–the American future in a nutshell.
“Hispanic Sustainability Nielsen says Latino culture is here to stay” (dm2hispanics): In State of the Hispanic Consumer, The Hispanic Market Imperative, Nielsen has identified several unique circumstances that combine to make Hispanics the largest population group to exhibit culture sustainability—including borderless social networking, retro acculturation, technology as a facilitator for cultural exchange and an emerging generation that combines Hispanic and U.S. cultures.”
