quote:

Obama Courts Latino Voters With Immigration Speech

As a candidate, President Obama promised Latino voters that he would aggressively push for passage of a comprehensive immigration bill during his first year in office. “What I can guarantee is that we will have in the first year an immigration bill that I strongly support and that I’m promoting,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with the Spanish-language broadcaster Univision in 2008.

Now, facing a re-election campaign next year, the White House is embarking on a public relations effort to reassure Latino supporters who say they are frustrated by the president’s failure to deliver on his immigration promise.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama will travel to the United States border with Mexico to kick off a series of community conversations about the need for immigration reform. In a speech in El Paso, Mr. Obama will urge Congress to act, though officials said he would not unveil legislation nor demand a specific timeline.

“He’s trying to lead a constructive and civil debate on America’s broken immigration system,” a senior White House official said, speaking on background ahead of the president’s speech. “What the president is hoping to do is to drive momentum.”

Latino voters sided overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama in the 2008 election...


*****

The president, officials said, wants to “create a sense of urgency around the country that matches his sense of urgency.”

But liberal and conservative Latino activists in Washington say the president will need to do more than that if he hopes to convince Latinos that he deserves their support in 2012.

“If they think that this is going to be the thing that mobilizes an increasingly disappointed Latino electorate, I think they’re wrong,” Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice Education Fund, a pro-immigration reform group, said in an interview Monday.


***

“They are going to have to have to make some big administrative action to make up for the fact that he promised big,” Mr. Sharry said.


Full article at http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/obama-courts-latino-voters-with-immigration-speech/

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ORIGINAL: Brain

It looks like Republicans will be at fault if they do not come to an agreement

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Standing at the border Tuesday, Obama mocked Republicans for never being satisfied and always changing the conditions about what's needed to secure the border. Said the president: "Maybe they'll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat."

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

Yeah, actually, he's doing a better job of uniting the country than you are doing.

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

The fuck he didn't.  Either your revisionist history or your ignorance is showing.

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

Not sure what "uniting" means in decades long polarization. But the majority seem behind the efforts --

[since you've claimed the majority are conservative, that would have to include conservatives--hence, uniting...]

By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, May 11, 3:17 AM

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s approval rating has hit its highest point in two years — 60 percent — and more than half of Americans now say he deserves to be re-elected, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll taken after U.S. forces killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

In worrisome signs for Republicans, the president’s standing improved not just on foreign policy but also on the economy, and independent Americans — a key voting bloc in the November 2012 presidential election — caused the overall uptick in support by sliding back to Obama after fleeing for much of the past two years.

Comfortable majorities of the public now call Obama a strong leader who will keep America safe. Nearly three-fourths — 73 percent — also now say they are confident that Obama can effectively handle terrorist threats. And he improved his standing on Afghanistan, Iraq and the United States’ relationships with other countries.

Despite a sluggish recovery from the Great Recession, 52 percent of Americans now approve of Obama’s stewardship of the economy, giving him his best rating on that issue since the early days of his presidency; 52 percent also now like how he’s handling the nation’s stubbornly high 9 percent unemployment.

The economy remains Americans’ top issue.

Impressions of the nation’s fiscal outlook have improved following last Friday’s positive jobs report, which showed American companies are on a hiring spree. More people now say that the economy got better in the past month and that it’s likely to continue doing so in the coming year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ap-gfk-poll-obamas-approval-rating-hits-highest-point-in-2-years/2011/05/11/AF2ipymG_story.html

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

Health care was the prime objective.

And the opposition was yelling "Why so fast? Get to it in time..."

Immigration reform is a mess here, because what's reasonable is broadly opposed (Bush struggled with this too).

And alas, yes, the issue drips politics from every side.