Tag Archives: Obama

The temptations of Marco Rubio

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It long has been a political truth that delegates to the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago did a young, brash and wealthy John F. Kennedy a favor by turning back his bid to be the party’s vice presidential standard bearer.  The thinking holds that without Kennedy on the ticket his Catholicism could not be blamed for Adlai Stevenson’s overwhelming loss to an incumbent President.  At the same time, however, Kennedy’s high-profile battle on the convention floor boosted his chances for the 1960 presidential nomination.  When he knew he did not have the last few votes he needed, Kennedy pulled the plug and magnanimously endorsed Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee on national television.

One wonders if the same truth does not apply to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whose potential candidacy for the Republican vice presidential nomination was given a second wind last week by former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former mayor New York City Rudy Giuliani.

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2008 and 2012: No change yet

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What is the narrative of the campaign so far?   It might seem to be a bit nebulous since it might revolve in the end on whether Mitt Romney is a tax dodger.  Last week I had an encounter with a businessman that might shed some light on what might be the story of the election – especially as the polls admittedly are beginning to bounce all over the place.

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Gun Control and Reality

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I go back and forth on this gun control thing.  Growing up in rural Texas with a father who hunted and who during the Cuban missile crisis got his rifle out of the closet and got it ready, I favor the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.  I cannot imagine that the founders who, however elitist, did not recognize the dangers of new settlers making their way unarmed through the wild forests of a new country.  It is nonsense to think that individual citizens cannot protect themselves.  And I cannot imagine that anyone would think that citizens cannot use whatever means to defend themselves against oppression.  Think Hafez al Assad in Syria and his father, Bashar al Assad, or Joe Arpaio of Arizona for that matter. I am glad Hispanics or Latinos have the Second Amendment as their last resort.

On the other hand, the violence wrought by handguns and the possession of larger weapons really is a wholly different matter.  But how do you control the possession of arms so that someone like the shooter in Denver today would not have been able to do the damage he did this morning?

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Latino Veterans: An untapped source within the Hispanic community

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More and more Hispanics or Latinos are coming to understand their unique placement in the flow of American history that at this moment calls on them to understand their growing responsibility for the fiscal fate of the country.  Two groups within the HispanicLatino community know and feel the mounting obligation the best:  College-educated professionals and veterans.  Individuals holding college degrees most often are the ones who rise to play leadership roles within the community.  But the vast numbers of HispanicLatino veterans – many of them having put their lives on the line for the country – are as cognizant and are especially important today.  They, more so than most, know what is at stake in a pivotal election in which they can make a decided difference.

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Say it isn’t so, Rupert: Romney Going Negative on HispanicLatinos

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Regular readers of this blog know that some weeks ago I wrote that the Romney campaign might have decided tactically to give up on the HispanicLatino vote.  Nothing otherwise explains Romney’s lame performance at the NALEO conference in Orlando three weeks ago. I suggested that Romney might now allow his friends at the SuperPacs to run an anti-HispanicLatino strategy in selected states to whip up working class whites a la Willie Horton to make up for any lost share in traditional GOP HispanicLatino support.

A story in The Washington Post about a tweet by Rupert Murdoch supports my suspicion.  “Murdoch was among 50 people who met with the former Massachusetts governor at the Union League Club in New York City (last week)….At the meeting, Murdoch pressed Romney and his aides to get tougher on Obama and asked about Romney’s stance on immigration. He later tweeted his thoughts in response to a follower who said Romney has brains but needs more stomach and heart…(Murdoch tweeted): ‘Romney has all these and more, but just to see more fight. And Hispanics a surrender to O. Cn not afford, hurts senate too.’”

Murdoch’s disjointed, contorted tweet implies that he walked away from the meeting with the impression that Romney has surrendered HispanicLatinos to President Obama, something Murdoch feels Romney cannot afford to do.  But trailing 68-24 percent among HispanicLatinos in the polls, Romney might feel he has no option but to revert to a strategy that attracts voters scared and anxious about the economy and the nation’s new demography.

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Intensity after Court decision is not one-sided

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I am often struck by the conventional wisdom that sprouts instantly on television after, say, a Supreme Court decision on health care.  Conventional thinking is like angel dust to reporters who in the immediacy of an event have to say something that by the end of the day is repeated often enough during the 24/7 news cycle that it becomes fact.

So it is with the “intensity argument” that is supposed to give the Republican campaign of Mitt Romney a much-needed boost in the arm.  Trailing in every state that is supposed to be competitive in a supposedly close election, Romney, it is thought by the conventionalists, received an injection of energy sure to change the dynamics of the campaign.  I am not convinced.  I doubt more can be done to increase the anger-level of the virulent anti-Obama camp.  In contrast and perhaps as important is the fact that three million young Americans up the age of 26 can stay on their parents’ insurance policies.  Add to that perhaps as many as five million grateful, anxious parents and anyone can begin to see that the intensity argument does not flow in one direction only.

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Marco Rubio: Laugh or Cry?

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I am one of those HispanicLatinos who wants to like Marco Rubio.  Anyone who knows and understands how fast HispanicLatinos need to rise within high leadership circles to affect the challenges the country faces should cut a wide swath around individuals like Rubio, especially those gifted with the kind of presence, charm and personality that some people equate to that possessed by John F. Kennedy.  In today’s media-driven world, Rubio possesses all the traits that lead to success.

Except that Rubio is so wrong on so many fronts.

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Romney Lets Golden Moment Pass

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I do not know what President Obama is going to say today in Orlando at the annual convention of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials.  I did hear Mitt Romney yesterday and to say that it fell short of what he needed to do is an understatement.  By my timing, Romney spoke for 16 minutes.  In the 20 or so GOP debates during the presidential primary campaign, I estimate that Romney spent at least five minutes, on average, bashing immigrants and, by extension, HispanicLatinos who, while not making immigration their number one priority, do not cotton to that kind of language.  Romney’s antagonistic language in the last few months amounted to perhaps as many as 100 televised minutes – not to mention the endless repetition of his remarks as sounds bites across every medium in the country.  It isn’t as if HispanicLatinos do not know where Romney stands on things HispanicLatino.  And so 16 minutes hardly would suffice. 

But Romney amazed me:  The national Spanish-language networks, both television and radio, waited for him with genuine interest.  Univision and Telemundo were there, but also were the mainstream media, from which most HispanicLatinos get their news.  CNN and MSNBC carried the address live.  This was not a “gotcha” moment.  He had control of the entire environment.  It was a golden moment for Romney but, like the alleged vetting of Marco Rubio for vice president, Romney flubbed his opportunity.  Perhaps he expects Jeb Bush or Rubio to do what he could not do for himself.  Yet it does not work that way. Folks do not vote for surrogates. He could have achieved 100 percent coverage of the HispanicLatino community to make up for 100 minutes of discord.

If the Romney campaign hoped for some phrase, some language, some image, some narrative to register and make it across the many media gathered there that could begin to turn around the presidential race, the speech it prepared for its candidate was wholly and surprisingly absent of anything substantive.  Who gets this kind of tee-up and whiffs it? 

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Off Comes the Shine on Marco Rubio

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Reports earlier yesterday that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was not being vetted as a serious vice presidential running mate by the Mitt Romney campaign – contradicted later by the candidate himself – imparts valuable political data.  Perhaps a goldmine. 

The first nugget suggests ongoing debate within the campaign about the strategy for the general election itself.  Thus the hash that became the latest Rubio boomlet was no boomlet at all.  More probably it was a botched attempt to influence internal campaign thinking.

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The Dreamers: Tomorrow’s Leaders – the Force the HispanicLatino Community Has Always Needed

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The next few days or fortnight will redeem Charles Dickens’ it was the worst of times, it was the best of times for the HispanicLatino community.  In a clear signal that it understands the political and fundamental role that HispanicLatinos play in developing the future of the country, the Obama Administration set the stage for the incorporation of 800,000 mostly HispanicLatino young men and women into the flow of American life.  For them, it is the best of times, at least in the short run.  They can think about how to proceed with their lives for the next two years and perhaps longer if they make the most of the time they have been allotted.

But depending on what and when the Supreme Court rules on Arizona’s anti-HispanicLatino law, the rest of the community could well be facing the beginning of the worst of times, starting now, if the Court announces its decision today or perhaps next week.  The Court almost certainly will rule in favor of a law that targets HispanicLatinos specifically so that they any individual who appears to be HispanicLatino can be harassed at the whim of any local official.  Indeed, almost any positive ruling by the Court will encourage local officials, including law enforcement and public school officials, to embark on dangerous self-enforcement missions that in some cases will provoke violence. 

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