[Marxism] On drivers' license issue in Cal, Obama campaign takes on more colorations of revolt

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The person who submitted this to the change-links list in LA did not cite
the source, though it reads like a newspaper report.

Because of its intrinsic interest, I decided to submit it anyway.  Maybe
someone recalls the source (the LA Times?);

Fred

 


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From: change-links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:change-links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of bigraccoon
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 4:19 AM
To: change-links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [change-links] Obama Takes Big Risk on Drivers License Issue

 

Obama Takes Big Risk on Driver's License Issue

Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in
South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is
running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he
is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the
red-hot issue of granting driver's licenses to illegal
immigrants.

It's a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It's also a
huge issue for the general electorate, which most
vehemently does not. Obama's stand could come back to
haunt him not only in a general election, but with other
voters in California, where driver's licenses for illegal
immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis.

Clinton stumbled into that minefield in a debate last fall and
quickly backed off. First she suggested a New York proposal
for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants might be
reasonable. Then she denied endorsing the idea, and later
came out definitively against them.

Asked directly about the issue now, her California campaign
spokesman said Clinton "believes the solution is to pass
comprehensive immigration reform."

"Barack Obama has not backed down" on driver's licenses for
undocumented people, said Federico Peña, a former Clinton
administration Cabinet member and Denver mayor now
supporting Obama. "I think when the Latino community
hears Barack's position on such an important and
controversial issue, they'll understand that his heart and his
intellect is with Latino community."

Obama's intention is to draw distinctions between himself
and Clinton on what are otherwise indistinguishable
positions on immigration. Both have adopted the standard
Democratic approach of favoring tougher enforcement along
with earned legalization.

The Illinois senator is differentiating himself in three key
areas: driver's licenses, a promise to take up immigration
reform his first year in office, and his background as the son
of an immigrant (his father was Kenyan) and a community
organizer in Chicago.

Obama made the promise to Latino leaders to take up
immigration reform in his first year after Rep. Rahm Emanuel,
D-Ill., chairman of the Democratic caucus, said his party
might not raise the divisive issue again until the next
president's second term, assuming a Democrat wins.

Latino leaders felt betrayed. For them, an immigration
overhaul is a top priority in light of state and local
crackdowns on illegal immigrants and federal raids in
workplaces across the country.

Clinton has not made such a promise, saying only that she
would make her best efforts.

"Those issues are huge," said Obama supporter and state
Sen. Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, vice chairman of the
California Latino Legislative Caucus.

Democratic pollsters Stan Greenberg and James Carville
issued a direct warning on the driver's license issue in an
analysis last month designed to guide Democrats through
the treacherous immigration quagmire.

"The findings about driver's licenses are particularly notable,"
they said. Two-thirds of surveyed voters oppose them, the
pollsters found, and the safety argument fails to dent the
widespread conviction that granting a driver's license
rewards illegal behavior.

But it will definitely work with Latinos, said John Trasviña,
president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Educational Fund. "Clinton and (Sen. John) Edwards have
said no driver's licenses for unauthorized immigrants,"
Trasviña said. "Sen. Obama has said you get a driver's
license if you know how to drive. And that message I think
will resonate in the Latino community as we get closer to
California."

The latest California Field Poll shows Clinton leads among
Latinos 59 percent to 19 percent. That's bigger than the
margin that handed her Nevada just over a week ago and
about how well former President Bill Clinton did with Latinos
in California when he won the state in 1992 and 1996, said
poll director Mark DiCamillo.

One in 3 Californians is Latino, and although they make up
just 14 percent of the electorate, they are 1 in 5 Democratic
primary voters, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy
Institute of California.

"That's a very sizable group and a leading indicator in terms
of younger and new voters," president Mark Baldassare
said. "That's just the demographics of our state. They're a
really crucial group."

Clinton's biggest asset is "El Presidente."

Thanks to Bill Clinton's presidency, during which he lavished
attention on California, and her own eight years as first lady,
Hillary Clinton enjoys enormous name recognition among
Latinos.

She has also done her spadework. Clinton picked up early
endorsements from leading Latinos such as Los Angeles
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez
and fabled farmworker organizer Dolores Huerta.

Clinton opened her new East Lost Angeles campaign office
Saturday with three Latina members of Congress: Hilda
Solis, Grace Napolitano and Lucille Roybal-Allard.

Obama has lined up several lesser-known officials, including
Assemblyman Joe Coto, D-San Jose, chair of the Latino
Legislative Caucus, as well as Rep. Linda Sanchez,
D-Cerritos, who split from her sister, Rep. Loretta Sanchez,
a Clinton backer from Garden Grove.

While Clinton has the backing of the United Farm Workers,
Obama has picked up the endorsement of Unite Here, a
heavily immigrant service workers union.

Both camps discount speculation of simmering racial hostility
that might make some Latinos reluctant to vote for a black
man.

"The familiarity with President Clinton has given her a very,
very big lead from the beginning," said Maria Elena Durazo,
secretary-treasurer for the Los Angeles County Federation
of Labor who is campaigning for Obama.

If there were racial animosity, "obviously we would have to
address that very directly," Durazo said. But mostly the
response Durazo gets when she asks Latinos about Obama
is, "Who is he? I don't know who he is," whereas with
Clinton, the answer comes back, "We know Presidente Bill
Clinton."

Maria Echaveste, a UC Berkeley law lecturer advising the
Clinton campaign, agreed. "Everyone is so quick to jump on"
the racial angle, she said. "But, frankly, I think the
explanation is a much greater number of people know her
and love Bill Clinton."

Huerta, a longtime Latina activist and co-founder of the
United Farm Workers union, scoffed at Obama's credentials
with Latinos. Clinton worked in the Rio Grande Valley in
Texas as a young woman, she said, while Obama was
missing in action during two major activist events in Chicago,
once when Elvira Arellano sought church sanctuary to avoid
deportation, and another time when two Latino men were
falsely accused of murder.

"He's now trying to build a relationship, but it's just not
there," Huerta said. In Nevada, casino workers dubbed
themselves "Hilarios," she said, meaning Hillary supporters.
"This came from the people."

With Obama, she said, "A lot of them would say, 'Señor como
se llama?' They didn't know Obama's name."

Latinos also trust Clinton, Huerta said. "Support for her is
not just support; it's enthusiastic support. In fact, I haven't
seen anything like this since the Bobby Kennedy campaign
back in '68."

Obama has begun airing campaign ads on Spanish-language
TV and his supporters are working hard to promote Obama's
activist Chicago roots, which Peña declared forged "a
personal connection with Latinos that no other candidate
has had."

Added Durazo, "He's the son of an immigrant, he's the son of
All of those issues resonate with a hotel housekeeper, a
construction worker, a day laborer. ... I have great hope that
we're going to break through that gap in a big way."

__._,_.___ 




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