Obama's immigration ploy gains him nada
By ANDREW MALCOLM
Posted 08:22 AM ET
To help smother the dismal reviews of his economic reset speech last week in Cleveland, President Obama scheduled a last-minute Rose Garden appearance Friday morning to add some presidential heft to his executive order about immigration.
Whenever he's in trouble, the one-time Real Good Talker throws another speech out there. Until this spring's troubles, everybody always said speaking was his strong suit. His Fidel Castro-length economic remarks blamed Europe, Congress and the usual Texan for the nation's re-sinking economy.
But -- are you sitting down? -- it contained no new ideas. He's still waiting for Congress to do something, you see.
So, the 6,300 words ended up merely calling more sustained attention to the administration's idea bankruptcy, to the dim outlook for job improvements and to how bad the economy remains, despite all the promises more than 700 days ago of a magnificent Recovery Summer. Two-thirds of Americans remain convinced their country is still mired in recession.
So, to change the subject quickly, Obama's Friday schedule was amended for him to get some news coverage about what he'd already told Homeland Security to do: Permit illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children to remain here under certain conditions, not including citizenship.
The unexpected announcement, which always raises the attention level in that D.C. hothouse, was widely touted by the media as a brilliant political move that would not only back Republicans into a corner somewhere, but earn a badly-needed poll boost for the Democrat languishing dangerously well below 50% approval in an election year.
It also replaced the Cleveland lecture with a fresh discussion topic for the Sunday morning talk-show agenda that sets the tone for the new week. There, on several channels White House strategist David Plouffe kept a straight face. He maintained that c'mon, this president, who did nothing on immigration reform for 3.5 years, had no political motive whatsoever in making the immigrant announcement just 144 days before his attempted reelection.
As phony as it was, turns out, that was a good thing for Plouffe to say because -- guess what? -- Obama's dramatic illegal immigration non-amnesty amnesty did nothing politically for the Chicagoan in the polls. Zip. Nada. Rien.
On the day before his immigration remarks, Gallup's seven-day rolling average of about 3,000 registered voters in a hypothetical Obama-Romney match-up had the Republican ahead 46-45.
Four days later the rolling average was exactly the same, 46 Romney 45 Obama.
In Rasmussen Reports' three-day rolling average of their match-up, just before Obama's Rose Garden remarks, Romney lead Obama 47-45.
Three days later, Romney had improved to 48. Obama had slipped to 44.
So much for that predicted presidential poll bump.
Why is this? Well, a disciplined Romney, as he did in the later GOP primaries, has shown a laser campaign focus on jobs and the economy, the top poll issue every single day since Barack Hussein Obama took the oath twice in 2009 with a 69% approval rating. The Republican has refused to be drawn into distracting dust-ups of Obama's choosing, such as pretend immigration reform.
Obama attends a friend's wedding in Chicago, plays golf for the 100th time and flies to Mexico for yet another unproductive G-summit, including an icy audience with Russia's President Putin.
Meanwhile, an increasingly comfortable Romney guides his bus through crucial battleground states talking jobs and the economy at every single stop. He says, "Who wants four more years of greater and greater government regulations that strangle small businesses?"
The timing of Obama's immigrant ploy is also strange. A summer Friday? Fridays are the day chosen by every administration to dump bad news, not exciting policy pluses seeking maximum attention. That's because the minds of many Americans on June Fridays are already aimed at the weekend. And by Monday what was released Friday is old news.
To be sure, the Hispanic vote is of growing national importance and Obama already stands well in that sector. But as RealClearPolitics' perspicacious Sean Trende writes, an improvement of that standing is likely to benefit Obama largely in only Colorado and Nevada, where but 15 electoral votes are in play.
And while the media focuses on the Hispanic vote, the largely overlooked flip side is non-Hispanic whites, still the largest sector of voters. Obama, who infamously once dismissed them as bitter, gun-loving Bible-clingers, has had persistent trouble with them. In 2008, Hillary Clinton clocked him among those voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.
Oh, look! That's a group of voters where Mitt Romney has been gaining strength.
How happy are any of them likely to be now with Obama's sudden legalization of a few million more young competitors for all those non-existent jobs that Obama has been promising for so long?
RELATED:
Global leaders gather and Obama chews gum
How Andrea Mitchell distorts a Mitt Romney story
Obama: Next term's decisions will have 'an enormous impact' on U.S.
Gov. Scott Walker: Let's grow our nation's independence, not dependence
© 2012 Investor's Business Daily, Inc. All rights reserved. Investor's Business Daily, IBD and CAN SLIM and their corresponding logos are registered trademarks of Investor's Business Daily, Inc. Copyright and Trademark Notice | Privacy Statement | Terms and Conditions of Use
__._,_.___
Recent Activity:
27% OF OUR POPULATION IS 17 & UNDER..100% CONTROL OUR FUTURE
All posts should be something you are not ashamed to show to your young people or your clergy. Suggestions, Complaints, Problems, Personal Criticisms and Subjects that could cause debates that could be controversial are to be kept out of sends to the whole alliance. Either send them personally to each other or directly to a ccpga moderator, or the owner at this address: ccpga-owner@yahoogroups.com
Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use
.
__,_._,___
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment