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President Obama’s new move to help undocumented children may already be paying off serious political dividends. The policy change is extremely popular with likely voters. From a Bloomberg poll:
President Barack Obama is winning the opening round in the battle over immigration, according to a Bloomberg poll released today, putting Republicans on the defensive with his decision to end the deportations of some illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children,
Sixty-four percent of likely voters surveyed after Obama’s June 15 announcement said they agreed with the policy, while 30 percent said they disagreed. Independents backed the decision by better than a two-to-one margin.
This move is effectively a political hat trick for the Obama team.
First, the policy is popular in general, as we see from the poll. Looking at the strong support from independents, it is unlikely the move cost Obama any swing voters.
Second, the policy change has clearly helped to excite an important part of his coalition, Hispanics. While it is unlikely to sway a large segment of voters, it could definitely make a difference in that community.
Finally it has put his opponent Mitt Romney is a serious political bind that should help push Hispanics even further towards Obama. The way Romney was awkwardly unable to answer a simple question about it on Face the Nation this Sunday was almost painful to watch.
25 Comments
Good politics, good policy. Pity he wasn’t this bold on a few other issues. Quite a few.
Imagine what he could have done…………….
well sure, support this initiative, and know that it’s happening because it’s election year.
Still doesn’t mean I’m voting for him.
“This move is effectively a political hat trick for the Obama team.”
Which is the only reason he has done it, calculating on the same calculator he used to get elected in the first place. Think tank strategery is how Americans got sucked into having concerns about what Wall Street is doing.
Win-win for the big cats. They get to fleece us at the same time as we have a pittance invested in the system. That’s the strategy here too. I’ll really call down the vengeful fates now by saying this smacks of Hitler’s youth programs, get them ultimately to inform upon their parents. Great think tank strategery, guys. We used to talk about Goebbels with respect to Bush, so here we go again taking a page from the Nazi playbook.
And again, lest we forget, it isn’t as though Obama’s immigration guys are playing nice with those who flocked north when NAFTA made their peasant lifestyles ancient history and the drug war ratcheted up thanks to weaponry easily available across the border (and sometimes deliberately shunted in). We are treating these people horribly, dream or no dream.
Agree Jerry. Coulda, shoulda done this two years ago.
It does look politically motivated five months before the elction.
Suppose they’ll mention that in his biography as president???
Alternate poll question:
Do you agree or disagree that the President should take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, as is explicitly stated in the Constitution?
“President Obama’s new move to help undocumented children may already be paying off serious political dividends.”
That’s the point. That’s all this amounts to. It’s the latest act in the 2012 con game. How does one imagine this effort will fare after Obama gets a second term?
Think about the burden of proof for avoiding deportation for the immigrants potentially affected by this policy. Think about what they risk by believing in what amounts to at this point little more than rhetoric, and what they risk in getting on the DHS’s records.
“”Let’s be clear, this is not amnesty, this is not immunity, this is not a path to citizenship, this is not a permanent fix,” Obama said from the White House Rose Garden. “This is the right thing to do.” ( http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/06/15/us/politics/ap-us-obama-immigration.html?_r=1 )
For Obama’s election campaign, you bet your ass it is the right thing for him to do.
From the Bloomberg piece: “Karis Verlander, 65, an independent from the suburbs of San Antonio, said while she agreed with Obama’s decision, she thought it was driven more by politics than core beliefs. Verlander doesn’t plan to vote for Obama, saying she’s unhappy with the economy.
“He’s just playing politics with this issue,” she said. “He doesn’t really care.””
Karis gets it.
“And again, lest we forget, it isn’t as though Obama’s immigration guys are playing nice with those who flocked north when NAFTA made their peasant lifestyles ancient history and the drug war ratcheted up thanks to weaponry easily available across the border (and sometimes deliberately shunted in). We are treating these people horribly, dream or no dream.”
I have seen first hand the Obama policies that have ramped up the persecution, criminalization and imprisonment of Latino immigrants. I’ve seen immigrants chained together in kangaroo courts not even understanding the charges against them. I’ve seen the DHS’s Border Patrol steal their money, IDs and family photos and then rig the system so that they can never get these things back. And I’ve visited the publically funded but for profit detention facilites used to lock them up.
Anyone who thinks Obama gives a fuck about these people beyond what political benefit he can accrue from manipulating this issue is ill-informed. Anyone who thinks this latest pretention by Obama will amount to anything more than election year rhetoric is a fool.
I’ll bet a year’s salary that this current effort by Obama will result in greater, not less, deportations in the future.
Political hat trick is fine, such as it is.
However, I think managing this will be daunting because a lot of immigrants will figure it’s a good idea to get that work permit whether or not they intend to work. There would be a surge of requests.
The work permit would be the only concrete proof of vetting under the new policy. A student ID or military ID would not in itself do that. So that permit might come in handy regardless.
Hopefully the GOP’s rogues won’t scare hopefuls away from applying.
LOL who cares about that. Only a piece of paper.
Jon,
I put up a Diary earlier today, and there’s a Tip of the Hat to both you and Michelle Chen. As such, my thanks for your attention to this subject area. “It’s All About the Kids!” is the name of the diary.
Jaango
Then I guess the voters are overwhelmingly stupid.
On the surface this new policy seems like a step in the right direction, but then I started to look at the rules, and it’s going to be a small group that can qualify for this work permit.
And what about all the families this policy will tear apart?
The young people 21 to 30 year olds get to stay and work here, but their parents and younger siblings get deported!
How is this a good policy???
This is really a half baked idea. We need to change the immigration laws to allow many more people to come here legally.
This policy will one day be looked upon as the “Don’t ask Don’t tell” of immigration.
According to many on the Left, we now need to reward the President for making a decent policy change. The problem is that the change is correctly perceived by everyone as electioneering. It’s cheap window-dressing that simply perpetuates the notion in the public mind that the Left, considered the Democratic Party by a misinformed public, stands for nothing. And with the good reason. Obama and the democrats really don’t advocate political ideals. Their guiding value is the perpetuation of incumbency. By choosing to continue to vote for them instead of demanding an articulated advocacy of progressive policies, progressive activists are viewed correctly by a cynical public and, most importantly, independents as perpetuating the same old incumbency. There is no reason for the casual voter to care because there really is no reason for them to care. There was no reason to care during yesterday’s incumbency and it’ll be that way during tomorrow’s incumbency.
This is an extremely belated but good move on the part of Obama. It’s strictly a political move, though, not a big change of heart and mind by this guy. I guess someone showed him some polls on how the base is probably going to stay home in November because they’re tired of him kicking them to the curb and spitting on them just to curry favor with Republicans.
Question is…if zero is re-elected, will he go back to kicking the base to the curb to make Republicans happy?
Again, the amazing thing about Obama is how hard-right he is even when it costs him with voters. I never expected him to do that, no matter how cynical I was back in ’08.
Tell me about it. Two calls to my law firm this morning. What little is known isthat it’s too soon to apply…rules, forms etc. forthcoming in 60 days, please wait till then to apply.
However, and it’s a big one…anecdotal evidence among immigration lawyers is that removal proceedings for those who will qualify are being terminated by the govt…. a number of such events just over the weekend.
Stay tuned…
Notice the extraordinary effort it takes to get Obama to do something the voters want. The voters’ desires are not what guide this President.
http://youtu.be/Tvtdcn9wONA
Bloomberg equals money, finance, banks, corporations and CHEAP LABOR.
The question on the poll was whether or not you favor status for those brought here before the age of 16, but does not mention that this includes folks up to age 30. It means more people in the under 30 labor force, where unemployment is already approaching 50%.
The farm labor and fast food gonzos will love this – cheap labor that’s also legal.
If Obama had principles he would push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour (like AUSTRALIA), and then every worker from every country would have a fair chance in America.
Follow the money to the campaign contributors – big business – and you’ll see no regulations are passed without their blessing.
I call BS on any poll that says voters overwhelmingly support this measure. Approximately 65 percent of Americans oppose amnesty (and this is a form of amnesty) and those statistics have been consistent for years. Also, the numbers have been steadily rising.
Watch the disaffected partisans run back to Obama and get fooled again. These idiots are different than the fools that voted for twice for “W”?
Don’t think so.
Slightly OT. Cenk Uygur of CurrentTV abandoned any pretense of objectivity on last night’s program and embraced partisanship for the Democrats and Obama, while vilifying Romney for trivialities rather than matters of substance. In an effort to thoroughly reject objectivity they’ve hired that discerning, brilliant pundit Joy Behar of “The View” and given her a program. Their programming has now become a complete joke.
I strongly suspect Obama will get a second term. And if he did next to nothing to advance the wishes of the citizenry who voted for him the first time around, what motivation would he have for keeping campaign promises as a lame duck?
If this policy turns out to be anything other than rhetoric, it will be business that benefits. No way in hell are working class immigrants going to draw the long straw on this one. I may be wrong, of course, but if I were one of the 800 thousand immigrants who potentially fell under this policy, I would be very, very wary of this. Why anyone, especially immigrants, would trust the DHS or Obama as far as they could throw them is beyond me.
There’s objectivity in news programming? Since when? I thought they were all actors reading from a script in a “reality show”–didn’t Dan Rather get voted off the island? :)
After the appropriate business friendly candidates are vetted, it is the television more than any other single device that tells people for whom to vote. What else could account for getting duped over and over if not the constant propaganda that is television, coupled with the conditioning of Fear and deference to authority? What else could explain it? If one’s friend or co-worker behaved like W. or Obama, how many times would one have to get screwed over by their bullshit before they stopped falling for the same old lie?
The citizens of USA,Inc. who support either arm of this corrupt, criminal party either plan to benefit financially from the policies or are the epitome of the abused spouse who continually returns for more abuse because they fear being alone.
Cenk would occasionally object to Obama’s policies prior to last night, but he’s now officially entered campaign mode and actively pimps for Obama. Maybe Al Gore had him in for a talk. His objectivity proved to be fleeting. I doubt he wanted to follow Olbermann into oblivion.
“. . . or are the epitome of the abused spouse . . .”
You know what I have heard many times from Obama supporters in light of his actions being at odds with his 2008 rhetoric? I hear some version of, “But I want it to all be true. I want to believe.” Even in spite of overwhelming tangible evidence to the contrary, to which many accede, the article of faith that somehow it should be different throws trump. This time he won’t lie, this time I won’t get beaten, this time things will get better because he is the President and Presidents are good people who look out for the interests of the citizenry.
No, Virginia, they don’t give a fuck about you. Not because they are inherently evil people or psychotic, but becuase they don’t have to give a fuck about you. You will keep loving them, listening to them, obeying them and taking them back. They bank on the assumption that your low self esteem and diminished self worth and reliance will always keep you in need of their “leadership.”
Olbermann got voted off the island too? (I don’t know. I don’t watch.)