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Skip the Line

Ruben Navarrett Jr. on

CNN's Ashleigh Banfield asked me during an interview the other day how Latinos could fall for the kinder and gentler Mitt. "Latinos aren't stupid," she said.

I keep hoping she's right. But a new poll from Latino Decisions shows Latinos supporting Obama over Romney by 52 points -- 73 percent to 21 percent. And this is despite Obama's atrocious record on immigration.

It is a record so bad that Obama has to spruce it up with tall tales. Democrats are going bonkers because Romney tailors his message to the audience he's addressing. In a Rolling Stone interview, Obama called his opponent a bull -- - -.

Seriously? When it comes to immigration, that's all Obama does.

In what was supposed to be an off-the-record interview with The Des Moines Register that the White House later agreed to release, Obama predicted that immigration reform would get done next year. He suggested that, if he wins a second term, it would be "because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community." And so, he predicted, Republicans will fall in line.

How does Obama get Democrats to fall in line? They're in the pocket of organized labor, which wants more enforcement and fewer immigrants to compete with. It was Senate Democrats -- including one named Barack Obama -- who helped kill immigration reform in 2007, and Senate Democrats who killed the DREAM Act in 2010, denying undocumented students a pathway to legal status. He forgot to mention this.

 

As for Romney, the most honest moment of this election concerning Latinos was an unscripted one. At a May fundraiser in Boca Raton, Fla., he told Republican donors that, oh, how he wished he had been born Latino because then he would have a "better shot" of winning the presidency. That showed either a bad sense of humor or an even worse grasp on reality.

This is our choice? The lesser of two evils? The incompetent versus the mediocre?

What an insult. Don't accept it. Take a stand. Send a message. Demand better. Skip the line.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.


Copyright 2012 Washington Post Writers Group

 

 

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