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Monday, December 29, 2014

OBAMA OFFERS REPUBLICANS SOME ADVICE…


Does anyone other than myself see it as being the least bit peculiar that we have what seems to be an overabundance of Democrats who are more than willing to offer up all manner of what they apparently see as being some heartfelt political advice?  Is it because they have our best interest at heart, or, perhaps, might there be an ulterior motive of some sort?  I just don’t get it.  Previous advice handed out has had to do with the fact that unless Republicans pass some sort of ‘comprehensive’ immigration reform they will risk being relegated to minority status for the next 20 years and succeed in preventing themselves from winning the White House for just as long.

Now it would seem we have some additional advice, presumably just as well intentioned, coming from none other than Barry “Almighty”.  You see, it’s according to Barry that because white voters are abandoning the Democrat Party because they feel left out, the GOP should react by wooing Latino voters.  Barry offered his advice during an interview with National Public Radio.  And while I wish I could be confident that our stellar leadership in the Republican Party would get together and tell Barry to take his advice and stick it where the sun don’t shine, I doubt very much that our collection of spineless are actually capable of doing such a thing.

Anyway, Barry said, “There’s a burden on Democrats to need to make very clear to a broad swath of [white] working-class and middle-class voters that we are, in fact, fighting for them. And there’s also an obligation on the part of the Republican Party to make sure that they are broadening their coalition to reach out to the new face of America.”  Barry’s comments would seem to align him with many members of the GOP’s establishment wing, the very same ones who we continue to hear arguing the idiotic point that a high-immigration policy would kill two birds with one stone, aiding businesses while helping to win ballot-box support from low-income Latino immigrants.

That’s the sort of policy that is endorsed by the GOP’s many business allies, who want the GOP-led Congress to get busy and pass immigration laws in 2015.  However, that is also the view currently opposed by the GOP’s more populist wing, whose leaders argue that a low-immigration policy would spur 2016 support for the Republican Party from lower-income white, Latino and black swing voters in critical Midwest states. The leaders in this group include Sen. Jeff Sessions as well as likely 2016 candidate, former Sen. Rick Santorum, and they generally oppose Barry “Almighty’s” Nov. 20 decision to award work permits to five million unauthorized migrants.

The fact is that today we have fewer U.S.-born Americans who have jobs than were employed in November 2007, that despite the fact that we have undergone a working-age population growth of 11 million.  Almost one in every two jobs added since 2009 have gone to foreign-born workers.  Low-income white voters have shifted, and rather significantly so, to the GOP since the 1990s.  That shift was highlighted by the November election, where GOP candidates won 60 percent of white voters, giving the GOP a majority in the Senate. The GOP also won them 36 percent of the Latino vote and 50 percent of the Asian vote.

When asked about that loss, Barry simply chose to blame Democrat messaging.  He said, “There’s sometimes a gap in perceptions that we have to bridge,” while claiming centralized Obamacare health-care system should be welcomed by lower-income voters.  He went on to say, Kentucky “is one of the best states in using the Affordable Care Act to insure huge numbers of working-class white voters. It’s just they don’t call it Obamacare; they call it something else.”  However, Barry also acknowledged that his policies haven’t done much to help lower-income white voters gain jobs or reverse the slide in wages that has been underway since 2001.  Really? 

Barry said, “I do think that right now there are a lot of white working-class voters who haven’t seen enough progress economically in their own lives.”  He went on to say, “They hear about an immigration debate or they hear about, you know, debate surrounding Ferguson, and they think, ‘I’m being left out. Nobody seems to be thinking about how tough it is for me right now,’ or, ‘I’ve been downscaled, I’ve lost my job.’”  And he added, “I think there’s a legitimate sense of loss, particularly among men, who have seen manufacturing diminish; construction has been in the tank.”  Both of which are a direct result of liberal Democrat policies.

However, again according to Barry, the GOP should instead focus its attention on Latinos, not on lower-income voters. He said, “We [Democrats] have got to speak to those concerns. Now, the flip side is, you know, nobody would be happier than me to see the Republican Party try to broaden its coalition. Immigration reform, by the way, was a great opportunity for the Republican Party to do so.”  Ok, so who among us, other than perhaps Boehner, McConnell of Priebus, is actually stupid enough to believe any of what Barry says or that he only has our best interest at heart?  These naïve boobs will believe just about anything Barry tells them.  

Barry also offered tacit backing for the GOP’s business-backed establishment wing, the same wing of the party that so many of us oppose and not so fondly refer to as being RINOs, which strongly supports greater inflow of foreign workers. The wing includes former President George Bush, who minimized enforcement of immigration laws, and changed mortgage rules to help win political support from lower-income immigrants.  Barry said, “George Bush — I disagreed with a lot of issues, but he was absolutely right in his position on promoting comprehensive immigration reform, reaching out to the Latino community, and, as a consequence, did pretty well.”

Multiple polls would seem to indicate that American voters want immigration policy to aid Americans, not illegal immigrants.  For example, a September poll by Paragon Insights showed that large slices of the Democrat coalition would be “much more likely” to vote for a GOP candidate who says that “the first goal of immigration policy needs to be getting unemployed Americans back to work — not importing more low-wage workers to replace them.”  Such a sentiment would seem to flying the face of the advice being offered by Barry to the Republican Party.  But our leadership has demonstrated time and again that what the people think and want is unimportant.

Thirty-eight percent of African-Americans, 39 percent of Democrat women, 36 percent of Latinos and roughly 47 percent of Midwesterners said they would be much more likely to support a GOP candidate who favors the employment of Americans.  Gee, what a freakin’ concept, and yet many of those in our newly minted Republican majority in Congress seem unable to grasp what’s right in front of them.  Instead of listening to the people, our supposed party leadership choose to listen to the Democrats offering up this kind of idiotic advice.  If Republican wish to maintain their majorities beyond 2016 they need to decide to whom it is they’re going to listen. 

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