La Economia, Estupida
It’s a known fact that if Mitt Romney doesn’t get 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, he can kiss the White House adios.
The question is: Can he close the gap?
Dogged by his hard right turn in the primaries calling for illegal immigrants to self deport while deriding his opponent, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, for adopting in-state college tuition for those who came to the country illegally, Romney has been under growing pressure to lay out a comprehensive strategy. His chance came — and went –during his speech yesterday to a meeting of national Latino officials in Florida.
His “plan” consists of promising a long-term solution that will “supersede and replace” the “stopgap” measure President Obama imposed last week, halting the deportation of many illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
Romney, addressing a sometimes exuberant crowd, said he plans to devise a permanent solution and would work with Democrats in the spirit of bipartisanship. For a man desperate to win Latino votes, it’s not clear that vague notions, which could send millions who obeyed the law and graduated high school back into limbo, are going to work.
He did, however, smartly pull a standard play from his book and quickly pivot to the economy. Republicans know that Latinos – like the rest of the non-one-percent Americans — are looking at their own pocketbooks wondering when they will see more than change. And they know Hispanics have been hit disproportionately hard by the recession. While the national unemployment average is just over 8 percent, for Hispanics, it’s 11 percent.
The economic message makes sense. But in a world where Obama is has just seen a 10-point flip in Florida, bringing him four points ahead in the latest poll, Romney needs specifics. And fast.
Did I mention there are lots of Hispanics in Florida?
Share this article
You might also like:
Comments
Latest Posts
Facebook Studies Marriage Decisions
May 18th, 2013As a twentysomething woman, I’m always interested to see–when female friends get married–if they make the name change or keep their maiden name.
These days, that decision is usually announced by making it “Facebook official,” by simply changing the relationship status, or changing the last name along with it.
Using these data points, and women’s birth dates, Facebook analyzed what percentage of women from different age groups are taking their husbands’ last names, hyphenating their names or keeping their maiden names. The results were announced on the Facebook Data Science page this week.
Tumblr to Yahoo: Make My Day
May 17th, 2013Is the social blogging site Tumblr about to sell out?
Ad Week’s Mike Shields has the story that Tumblr has been having negotiations about being acquired by Yahoo.
As Shields reports, a deal could make sense for both companies:
“Yahoo is in serious talks with Tumblr to acquire the social blogging site, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks. The deal is not done, but could reach as high as $1 billion, Adweek has learned. Allthingsd.com was first to report on the talks between the two companies.”
Trial By Facebook: A Dangerous Virtual Path
May 17th, 2013I’m a criminal for being a woman, a journalist and someone with the temerity to walk into a bar.
In a fascinating study of both Facebook and freedom, Amnesty International New Zealand launched “Trial by Facebook,” which examines your profile, scours your timeline and “interrogates” yourfriends to find out what you’d be punished for posting, all around the
world. The app came out several months ago, but it’s been making waves
online this week.
Using my own Facebook page as a guinea pig, I found myself convicted 161 times, in 73 countries, for 13 crimes. Literally dodging a bullet, the
contents of my profiles weren’t tawdry enough to get me beheaded or shot dead, but I would be killed by extremists 22 times, sexually assaulted 16 times, imprisoned 58 times and beaten 73 times–and that’s just the beginning of the terror.
Google Plus Pointers, Twitter Fools
May 16th, 2013Tatiana Aders of Social Media News has made my day. If you don’t quite get how to use Google Plus, help is here:
“Google Plus has some of the most robust posting & sharing capabilities of any social network. From rich snippets to photo editing to individual circles, there are so many features that can make your post stand out from the pack. Here are some highlights from a cheat sheet that I built to get the most out of Google Plus posts.”
LinkedIn’s Latest Edict: Hookers Not Welcome
May 16th, 2013Attention ladies of the night and other interested parties: LinkedIn is taking a harder stance against prostitution.
As Mashable noted this week, the job-networking site has altered the language of its user agreement to expressly prohibit people from promoting escort services or prostitution on its pages.
