A year ago, one of the most commonly discussed scenarios for an Obama defeat in 2012 was his potential weakness among Hispanic voters, an important part of his 2008 coalition (and crucial in several battleground states) that had suffered disproportionately from bad economic times and whose leaders were tangibly unhappy with the president for failing to pursue comprehensive immigration reform.
Today an oversample of Hispanic voters in a NBC-Wall Street Journal survey supplies the latest evidence that Obama may be on track to match his 2008 performance among Hispanic voters: he currently leads Romney by a 61-27 margin, within range of his 67-31 margin over McCain in 2008. Romney’s famously hard-line position on immigration, which he used to great effect in the primaries to validate himself among conservatives (and to dispatch Rick Perry), is presumably a factor in his poor standing among Hispanics (outside the Cuban-American and Puerto Rican communities where there is relatively little concern about immigration policy).
Ironically, the punditry failure on this prediction was utterly predictable. Seriously, was there any chance in hell that today's Republican Party would nominate a candidate who was more progressive on immigration than Obama? The ad above -- run by PAC+, a lefty Super PAC -- could've been made no matter who won the primaries. But it fits Romney especially well, since -- as Kilgore noted -- he engaged in anti-immigrant demagoguery during the primary campaign...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
