WhatFinger


Not even pretending to govern anymore.

Obama will wait until after the election to illegally change immigration policy



Apparently Barack Obama no longer even feels the need to pretend he is governing. Granted, it’s been a while since anyone was fooled on that score, but you’re getting pretty blatant when you go ahead and announce that your latest plan to abuse your power for political gain is going to have to wait until after the election.
And that’s exactly what Obama has just done on immigration policy. Earlier this year, Obama had promised Latino activists who favor looser immigration policies that he would use executive orders to make it easier for those living here illegally to stay. This had prompted illegals throughout the country to get their papers in order in anticipation of the announcement. None of this was authorized by Congress, of course, but we’re way past expecting Obama to care about that. He would simply direct immigration officials not to enforce the law where doing so would please activists that he hoped would then turn out to help Democrats in this year’s mid-term congressional elections. But last week, Obama suddenly announced that while he still plans to perpetrate this blatant abuse of his power – remember that oath he took to enforce all the laws and not just the ones that benefit him politically? – he would wait until after the elections to do so. What changed? Here’s what? Nervous Democrats running for re-election, along with their political strategists, told the president that whatever his executive orders might do to help with Latino voters would be more than offset by the damage it would do with union members and other key constituencies that Democrats also need to win. It’s a classic problem for Democrats, who survive by pandering to a variety of special-interest constituencies whose interests sometimes conflict with one another.

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Loose-immigration Latinos want the government to back off deportation of illegals, and Democrats are happy to oblige because they vote Democratic (as will the illegals, some day, if they become citizens – or so the Democrats assume). But these folks compete with blue-collar Americans for jobs, and that upsets another Democrat constituency group. The solution? Keeping in mind, of course, that the objective is never good policy but always what gets Democrats through the upcoming election cycle, Obama decides to go ahead and screw his union backers but only after they give him and his political allies their votes. And apparently he’s not too afraid to let it be known that this is what he’s doing. Why should he? Everyone has known for a long time that Obama makes decisions on the basis of his own political needs and not what’s in the best interests of the country. At this point he probably figures he’ll get pretty good media coverage if he appears to be doing so shrewdly. Republican strategists are now saying Obama has teed up a perfect talking point for their candidates in the mid-terms. And immigration activists are feeling betrayed by the White House, having naively thought his promises to them meant anything. It sounds like a huge political mistake, but are Republicans really prepared to take advantage of it? Obama’s crime here is not breaking the promise, but making it in the first place, and more broadly being willing to circumvent Congress any darn time he feels like it in order to get the political result he wants. Voters will respond if Republicans make the point effectively that overall immigration policy needs to be addressed in a serious way, but that Obama and the Democrats only want to manipulate it for their short-term benefit. What Republican strategists usually prefer is some sort of talky-pointy, hot-button type panderfest that seeks to anger voters without really pointing to better public policy. I am sure Obama has noticed that, which is why he probably thinks he can be this blatant in the irresponsible practice of governance, and Republicans will still fail to take advantage. In the meantime, lest we forget, immigration policy is a complete mess – precisely because politicians seek only to manipulate it for their own benefit rather than to make it work better for the nation. Until we have leaders who seek to serve someone other than themselves, that is not going to change.


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