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Showing posts from November, 2014

It’s politics stupid.

Why did President Obama suddenly change course on immigration and “go it alone”?  Politics of course.  The next election is still two years away, but the campaign and debate season starts long before the election and now he has put Republicans on the defensive again.  Although the President’s record on immigration has been checkered with increased deportations and lack of progress on immigration reform, he has kept the Democrats as the preferred choice of Hispanics.  The dreams of Reagan and H.W. Bush to champion immigration reform and make the Republican Party, the party of immigrants, especially Hispanics, have turned into nightmares thanks to the overly nativist ultraconservative wing that influences the GOP. Reagan once quipped " Latinos  are Republicans. They just don't know it yet."   Perhaps today the more applicable quote is “Republicans are doomed.  They just don’t know it yet.” In addition to keeping the Hispanic electorate away from the Republicans, the ev

Midterm Elections: Where Are The Voters?

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  As we come up on the midterm elections on Tuesday, the electorate is bombarded by television and radio ads and if you drive anywhere on Scottsdale’s Scottsdale Road the ubiquitous campaign signs blight the otherwise beautiful Sonoran landscape.   Even in the Arizona Voter’s Guide, where the candidates are given an opportunity to state why they deserve your vote, half the candidates (almost exclusively the Republican candidates) use the space to attack their opponents.   And the relentless television ads wouldn’t be so bad if there were at least some variety.   Unfortunately, the political ad selection playlist is as limited as Sirius-XM or Top 40 channels when it comes to playing something other than Taylor Swift. So the electorate is already numb thanks to the relentless campaign advertisements, almost all of them negative, life is full of distractions and priorities and the time to research the candidates and ballot issues is often the first thing to get cut.   The biggest th