{"id":2608,"date":"2012-11-17T17:38:15","date_gmt":"2012-11-17T22:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/?p=2608"},"modified":"2012-11-17T17:38:15","modified_gmt":"2012-11-17T22:38:15","slug":"a-heart-check-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/17\/a-heart-check-please\/","title":{"rendered":"A Heart Check, Please!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Every month 50,000 Hispanics turn 18 years old.<\/p><\/div>\n

After his etch-a-sketch move during the final debates, it is easy to forget how Mitt Romney once castigated Rick Perry for his Texas Dream Act.<\/p>\n

Pushing back in the September 2011 debate Perry \u00a0challenged Romney’s critique:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they have been brought there by no fault of their own, I don\u2019t think you have a heart.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perry won neither the debate nor the nomination, but ultimately he did win the point.<\/p>\n

Later the Romney campaign decided that, alas, they needed Hispanic votes after all, and encouraged Marco Rubio to put together some sort of “Dream Act” initiative for young people willing to serve in the military, one that Romney could claim as his new-found position on immigration reform.<\/p>\n

When President Obama countered with his “Deferred Action” policy, Romney complained that Obama had done little on behalf of this newly discovered Latino constituency, and that the president’s actions actually stood in the way of some imminent grand Republican proposal on behalf of the Dreamers.<\/p>\n

Promising the Telemundo audience comprehensive immigration reform, Romney refused to commit to the President’s executive action.\u00a0 Only later did the campaign dribble out some promise to shield the Dreamers from deportation.<\/p>\n

Then post-campaign, Romney disparaged the President for somehow buying votes from people who could not vote<\/em><\/strong> by putting in place a Dream-Act-Light.<\/p>\n

To be fair, almost simultaneously came calls elsewhere in the Republican party for a fresh look at immigration reform, with none less than conservative Charles Krauthammer<\/a> writing in the Washington Post:<\/p>\n

For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe \u2014 full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet the sentiment expressed by defeated candidate Romney is indicative of the negative energy that the Latino community has come to expect from many Republican leaders during the last decade.<\/p>\n

The Latino demographic has reached critical mass.\u00a0 With 50,000 new Hispanic voters each month, the Republicans know that they have a brief window of opportunity to cultivate the good will of this growing community. Former Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele<\/a>, ever sensitive to the GOP’s mono-ethnic inclination, bluntly explains this “new reality”:<\/p>\n

“For the Republican party you know what our new reality is? Every month fifty thousand Hispanics turn eighteen years old. Every month. That’s six hundred thousand Hispanic youth every year.<\/p>\n

\n

Do you really think this party wants to spend the rest of the next fifteen, twenty, forty, fifty years in the political desert?\u00a0 If they do , great!\u00a0 Here is your moment!\u00a0 If they don’t then you’ve got to get real with the new reality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Even Fox News’ Sean Hannity<\/a> became an advocate of immigration reform:<\/p>\n

“We’ve gotta get rid of the immigration issue altogether. It’s simple for me to fix it. I think you control the border first, you create a pathway for those people that are here, you don’t say you gotta home. And that is a position that I’ve evolved on.<\/p>\n

Because you know what–it just–it’s gotta be resolved. The majority of people here–if some people have criminal records you can send’ em home–but if people are here, law-abiding, participating, four years, their kids are born here… first secure the border, pathway to citizenship… then it’s done. But you can’t let the problem continue. It’s gotta stop.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When President Obama decided to shield the Dreamers for two years, the Republicans incessantly criticized him for playing politics with the futures of 800,000 Latinos.\u00a0 None other than Charles Krauthammer earlier <\/a>called the action “Obama\u2019s amnesty-by-fiat” and “Naked lawlessness”, impugning the president’s motives and actions:<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s obvious why. The election approaches and his margin is slipping. He needs a big Hispanic vote and this is the perfect pander.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But that was before the election, before the “non-white” constituencies gave President Obama a decisive victory.<\/p>\n

The sudden, post-election conversions of Republican spokesmen will be welcome news to the Latino community.\u00a0 Hopefully immigration reform will come soon, even if the GOP doesn’t really have its heart in it.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After his etch-a-sketch move during the final debates, it is easy to forget how Mitt Romney once castigated Rick Perry for his Texas Dream Act. Pushing back in the September 2011 debate Perry \u00a0challenged Romney’s critique: \u201cIf you say that …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}