President Obama in one speech displayed why only the angriest of furies that could be goaded into action by a Newt Gingrich can defeat him. As important as the State of the Union speech last night was, so was the announcement by News Corporation – read that Fox – that it is creating a Spanish-language network to begin telecasting this coming fall. It was only a matter of time before Fox plunged into the continuously expanding HispanicLatino market. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Republican
South Carolina Sends Message…to Obama
— This blog is reposted from Saturday night; the usual business-oriented blog on Mondays will be published tomorrow. —
Though it is easy to dismiss that bane of the average American – the so-called “experts” – they do hold vast institutional and collective wisdom – but perhaps it is about the past. All of them – from the left to the right – have been wrong this year. And so in this uproarious year, their judgment is now near useless given South Carolina. None of these experts expected that after three GOP contests three different candidates could call themselves a winner. One does not have to be an expert in these things to sense something is not plumb with things-as-usual. I have been around journalistically and politically long enough to be confounded totally by what has happened in South Carolina. For me, it now is not outside the possibility that President Obama could lose this election. Continue reading
South Carolina Sends Message to….Obama
In this uproarious year, it now is not outside the possibility that President Obama could lose this election. One does not have to be an expert in these things to sense something is not plumb with things-as-usual. I have been around journalistically and politically long enough to be confounded totally by what has happened in South Carolina.
For conventional thinkers, this is not the year to be conventional. My thoughts have been all along that Obama was going to sweep over any of the Republican candidates. Now I am not so sure. Will Florida tell the tale? Perhaps. Watching Mitt Romney on television was looking at someone who, it turns out, is not as good as he thinks he is. This business of running for President is not like directing a takeover of another company – running for President is not insider work. Romney talked tonight as if he were talking to his staff instead of the country. His spiel was canned and repetitive. Newt Gingrich offers something new: New language, new energy, new anger – the stuff of which most elections are made and won. Continue reading
Enough already! ¡An eñe for Romñey!
Presidential elections can be learning moments or lead to moments in which the electorate can transcend history. In 1960, Americans came to know quickly that the world would not soon end when a Catholic became President. Perhaps, too, this year’s election can lead some uniformed voters to learn a thing or two about Mormonism – and about Mexico. Odd, often contradictory moments in life can teach important lessons, educate people and move them out of self-induced ignorance. Sometimes the news that informs people can be mundane, sometimes riveting.
Some Republican voters who were once head-over-heels in love with Newt Gingrich are still reeling from the news that this schlock anti-government conservative politician took millions of dollars from semi-governmental agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to act as a historian. The mundane should be amusing at best. That Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico should not be shocking – in another time and place, that is.
In today’s Republican Party, however, anything associated with Mexico, immigration and the Dream Act that would help immigrant students is electric to GOP voters. And Mitt Romney is personally associated with all three in deed and in concept: With a father born in Mexico of a family that emigrated there and then emigrated back to the United States and that received government aid to get them started upon their return, Romney perhaps ought to consider using the ˜ over the ‘n’ in his name. In an age when an anxious public pines for authentic men and women to lead them into the future, spelling his name Romñey would be a more accurate representation of who he is. Continue reading
The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
So Andrea Mitchell on her program yesterday on MSNBC I think ran a clip of a Mitt Romney ad seeking HispanicLatino support. I guess that was what he was doing. It might have been an old ad when he ran for governor or senator. Three weeks after saying if Congress passed the Dream Act he as President would veto it, the idea of a Romney commercial seeking HispanicLatino votes is indeed an illusion.
True, not all HispanicLatinos support the proposal to assist college-age students who are in the country illegally, most for no fault of their own. But whether a majority of HispanicLatinos support the Dream Act is not as important as what Romney’s sentiments represent: A red target that he and the other Republican candidates have painted on the backs of all HispanicLatinos.
More interesting than ascertaining if most HispanicLatinos support the act is determining whether any of the dreamers, as I call these holders of our future, are or were the children of the subcontracted undocumented workers that used to take care of Romney’s lawns and shrubs. I presume the well-resourced Obama campaign is looking into this matter, as well as to the possibility that Romney’s investments in more than 70 companies that led to workers losing their jobs might have included any HispanicLatinos. Continue reading
Another Front in the War Begins in Arizona
Back when Richard Nixon began the culture-wars that have led America to its current political paralysis, he and his cynical advisors used the friction between a generation bent on change and the so-called silent majority to win elections. Thus came to be the modern-day Republican Party that exploited the nation’s fears about a new culture dominated by acid, amnesty and abortion and then took advantage of the resentment against movements seeking to affirm women’s rights, the civil rights of minorities, protection of the environment and the rights of gays and lesbian. The culture-wars were anchored by the infamous “southern strategy” that was – and is – racist to its core.
Instead of incorporating the change that a generation born of television, openness, wealth and mobility were going to bequeath on the nation and bending it to produce a positive result, the Nixon cohort sought to abuse the divisions of a culture-war that after so many bitter years has been won by the generation of change on every front. Nothing punctuates the victory over reaction than the pre-Christmas lesbian couple selected in San Diego for the traditional kiss by which the Navy celebrates the returning home of a ship. Seen around the world, the kiss should be seen here for what it is: The end of the Nixonian culture wars. Nevertheless, a new war is being stoked by Nixon’s political descendants who put HispanicLatinos in the cross-hairs of history. Continue reading
After Iowa, a GOP for the Future?
Iowa Republicans today will begin to decide which version of the Republican Party will prevail for this election year but more so the immediate future. Not really understanding how the world has changed around them, Republicans have allowed anger to walk them into a social and demographic trap. In almost every way, Republicans do not understand that their perception of the world does not remotely comport with reality – and that most people are tired of nastiness. Continue reading
LBJ: An Eternal Gift to DOJ
What was it worth to me, those many years ago, as a young teenager watching President Johnson give his memorable speech in support of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to a joint session to Congress? When U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke Tuesday at the LBJ Library on the very matter that made Lyndon B. Johnson a hero in American history, my mind went back through time, and I was left pondering the void of leadership that has formed since.
No Newt is a Good Newt
A cardinal rule in politics holds that you cannot beat somebody with nobody. Another rule becomes operational when the first rule is violated: Political animals roam the landscape in search of a political void. Another reality is that journalism is not dead – meaning no one should crown Newt Gingrich just yet.
Texas: Justices, Help Turn History Back
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his fellow justices are being asked to stop redistricting maps in Texas drawn by three federal judges who voided the plan of the state Legislature. The three judges concluded state lawmakers purposefully diluted the strength of minority populations. The 2010 Census confirmed that minorities provided the vast majority of the state’s demographic growth since 2000. Scalia oversees appeals from Texas. The Court’s response could be instructive to other states.