Rep. Luis Gutierrez at Netroots: Latinos want to vote for President Obama, but being taken for granted will kill their turnout
Click here to view this media I took part in a small-group discussion at Netroots Nation this morning with Rep. Luis Gutierrez organized by the fine folks at America’s Voice , and afterward I managed to squeeze in a brief interview kind of summing up the discussion. The upshot: President Obama’s political team may well be endangering his ability to gain re-election by deferring action on immigration — not merely in passing comprehensive immigration, but in providing administrative relief for DREAM Act-eligible students , and laying off its draconian “Secure Communities” initiative — because it wants to tackle these issues in its his second term. As the congressman said: GUTIERREZ: That’s what he doesn’t understand, I think, is that people just won’t show up. And you know what? There’s nothing more, I believe, that the Republicans want, than to see us just kind of sit on our hands. ‘Cause guess what — they’re voting. They’re not staying home. You can say in the polls they’re 10 points behind, but they’re still going to show up the next day. Our folks? We need to be fed. C&L: Well, if you’re being taken for granted … GUTIERREZ: And we have been. And unfortunately, we have an administration who made us a promise about bringing about comprehensive immigration reform. Now, are there challenges this president — are there challenges the president of the United States could have been defeated on? Yeah. But you see, what they want is someone who goes down fighting. I would say that the congressman is talking about a lot of progressives from across a wide spectrum. But this is a significant case of short-sightedness. Latinos delivered the vote for Obama and Democrats in 2008 . They saved the Senate for Democrats in 2010 . And now the administration’s inaction threatens to wash all that down the drain — along with their own re-election chances. That’s plain stupid.
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on June 17, 2011. Filed under