NYT's Cooper Suggests GOP's 'Hard-Line' on Immigration Could Win Arizona for Obama
New York Times reporter Helene Cooper spread pro-Democratic optimism in Arizona, a state Barack Obama wasn't competitive in in 2008, thanks to the GOP's "hard-line stance" on immigration, in Friday’s “Arizona Sees a Boom In Voting-Age Hispanics – Democrats Sense Opportunity for Obama.”
Republicans in the State Legislature here push a law that would require President Obama to provide his long-form birth certificate in order to get on the Arizona presidential ballot in 2012. The governor uses Facebook to denounce the president’s “backdoor amnesty plan.” Cars traveling on State Route 260 are treated to a giant billboard bearing Mr. Obama’s mug on a mock $100 trillion bill that asks, “But Who Will Pay the Piper?”
Given the openly hostile environment, Mr. Obama would seem to have little chance of winning Arizona’s 11 electoral votes in 2012 or even the incentive to take much of an effort here. But the state’s crackdown on illegal immigration has coincided with a boom in its Hispanic population, now nearly a third of the state’s residents.
That has created what Obama strategists and some residents see as a surprising opportunity to compete in a Republican state that was off the map for Mr. Obama in 2008, when it was the home of his opponent, Senator John McCain. The sense has been reinforced by the hard-line stance that most of the Republican presidential field has taken on immigration and the party reaction against Newt Gingrich’s recent call for a “humane” policy on the issue.
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Once again, the Times is waiting for the "sleeping giant" of Hispanic voters to come through for Democrats.
The voting-age population of Hispanics in Arizona has surged over the last nine years to 845,000 from 455,000 and now constitutes 19 percent of Arizona residents of voting age. Though Hispanics have not turned out at high levels in past years, Democratic activists and Obama campaign officials believe that this year could be different, especially after Hispanic voters flexed their expanding muscle in recent local elections, including one this month that recalled a Republican state senator, Russell Pearce, the architect of the state’s tough immigration law.
Only in paragraph 13 did Cooper cop to a bit of reality:
Campaign experts still consider Arizona a long shot for Mr. Obama. If the election were held today, “Obama would lose handily,” said Bruce Merrill, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University. But, Mr. Merrill added, “there are some things going on here that could be more favorable a year from now for Obama.”
Among the factors working against the president in Arizona is the housing bust, which has hurt Arizona more than most other places. About half of the homeowners with mortgages in the state owe more than their houses are worth, and the same is true of about 60 percent of commercial properties with mortgages. Arizona is not the only place where Mr. Obama is hoping to take advantage of demographic changes. Although Mr. Obama’s support among blue-collar white voters has been weakening, and his prospects in traditional presidential bellwethers like Ohio and other industrial states are shaky, the campaign is trying to shore up an alternative Western strategy that expands the electoral map.
....
Mr. Meza said Latinos in Arizona were worried that the state had moved too far to the right on the political spectrum. “People feel that if it goes any further, they will be even more scapegoated,” he said.
Such sentiments are helping to motivate residents like Raquel Contreras, a 19-year-old Mexican-American sophomore at Arizona State University, who was working the phones one recent night to drum up support for Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign.
A photo of a beaming Contreras, with a photo of Obama on the back of a clipboard, dominated the story.
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Comments
This Hispanic votes
Submitted by rbosque on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 3:41pm.
This Hispanic votes Conservative and for a wall on the border. Piss on you NYTs!
This one does as well!!!
Submitted by ProudAmerican58 on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 4:36pm.
Ditto on your sentiments to the NYTs.
Ditto, Ditto, Ditto
Submitted by CarlosS on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 5:28pm.
Triple Ditto from me
Another Example of Democrat 'soft racism'
Submitted by ThePickle on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 3:41pm.
They continue to conveniently forget that some of the most vociferous opponents to the Democrats "open border" style immigration policy are "legal" Hispanic residents.
I guess that is just another illustration of Democrats soft racism with regards to minority groups.
I wonder when the whole 'if your black brown or yellow the OF COURSE you will agree with us' mentality from the left is gonna get old to free thinking individuals who, regardless of the color of their skin, simply don't care to be pigeon holed but the libs and then vilified if they dare step outside the roll assigned to them.
GOP better find their voice on the illegal Immigration issue.
Submitted by Gary Hall on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 3:58pm.
The GOP had better find their voice on the illegal Immigration issue. The voice is that a super majority of voters, nationally, supported the Arizona bill, and if you look inside the details, it's even better than that.
Polls have always shown how the American people felt on both illegal immigration and legal immigration, and those views have been disregarded long enough.
Just last year, in the heat of the Arizona Immigration Bill and the resultant hate mongering by the Obama White House, city councils across the country, and the national MSM, the very liberal - progressive Pew Center conducted a national poll. It was a good straight poll. The results, not surprisingly went like this:
just 25% support President Obama's immigration policy, which includes legalizing millions of unauthorized migrants
And what else did that poll find? Well, the Pew folks went right out and literally summarized those supposedly two most contentious measures in the bill (the ones Holder blocked - the ones that the boycotts were over) and found that nationally:
73% said they backed a measure requiring people to produce documents verifying their legal status if police ask for them,
while 67% approve of allowing police to detain anyone who cannot verify that they are in the country legally.
That super majority of Americans - that 70%+ broad swath of Americans - they're the ones the folks in the MSM, and at the White House, keep referring to as racist, intolerant, a danger to civil liberties, etc.
The people - the super majority - are going to find their voice, but only if the Republicans learn how to capitalize on what is.
(;~/ gary
Helene Cooper's strategy: so simple an infant can figure it out
Submitted by djwolf12 on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 4:01pm.
Basically she is telling M.S.S.R. (MSLSD) hosts to get ALL elected PROGRESSIVE/SOCIALIST representatives in Arizona (like Raul Grijalva did last year) to go on their propaganda outlet and claim their election headquarters are under assault from Tea Party activists in order to beg for campaign donations.
We are not stupid, Helene.
The leading GOP candidates
Submitted by forest on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 4:24pm.
The leading GOP candidates aren't taking a hard line on immigration.
lots of new young hispanic voters
Submitted by wizardjr on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 4:47pm.
I guess that open borders thing is really working out for Obama.
The GOP cowers in fear of the
Submitted by LAM SON 719 on Fri, 12/02/2011 - 6:04pm.
The GOP cowers in fear of the immigration issue, the one issue which could springboard them to victory they refuse to address. The GOP is a group on weak, ineffeactual, spinaless, obama kowtowing idiots. The GOP want obama to win so they can continue to whine and snivel.
Not one of them has stood up and addressed and exposed the liberal race baiters.