Douthat is puzzled by Democratic plans for immigration reform:
In the long term, certainly, the slow-but-steady growth of the Latino vote offers a big opportunity for the Democrats. (And in the long term, the Republican Party’s growing reputation as the party of, well, advertisements like these bodes ill for its ability to offer a demographically-inclusive conservatism.) But the Obama White House needs to play for 2012, not 2028, and in 2012 there’s little reason to think that the gains from mobilizing Hispanics around an (almost certainly futile) immigration reform push will count for all that much.
The evidence that Hispanic Americans are single-issue voters obsessed with the border debate has never been all that strong (look at the poll accompanying this Times story, and you’ll see that immigration ranks below jobs, education, health care and the deficit on the list of Hispanic priorities), and the evidence that they’re the country’s crucial swing constituency is likewise relatively weak: In 2008, amid intense Democratic enthusiasm, the Latino share of the electorate was still only 9 percent, and as Andrew Gelman noted afterward it’s very difficult to argue that they were a particularly crucial component in Obama’s sweeping victory. Which suggests that if the White House wants to repeat that triumph in 2012, wooing back disaffected whites is going to be much more important than re-consolidating the Hispanic vote — and it’s hard to see how a big effort on immigration reform helps them on this front, and very, very easy to see how it might hurt.
Ad from Alex Pareene's list of race-baiting campaign ads.
The Dish 