Newsfront


Obama Turns to Amnesty for Political Gain


Desperate for voters, the president is appealing to special interests.


C BY SALENA ZITO


all it identity politics on steroids. President Obama’s aggressive moves to curry favor with specific


constituencies — granting de facto amnesty to illegals under 30, support- ing gay marriage laws at the state level, and mandating faith-based insurance firms to offer morning-after pills to women — are beginning to attract the attention of political scientists. They speculate it may represent a


new form of politics: a hyperpartisan appeal to special interests that would reshape the political map, carving out a new path to victory despite 8 per- cent-plus unemployment. If the strategy works, they say,


moderate New Deal Democrats could find themselves squeezed out of the Democratic tent, in favor of a new coalition focused on women, blacks, Hispanics, and gays. Curt Nichols, political science pro-


fessor at Baylor University, predicts Obama’s identity-based campaign will be one of the most divisive in modern elections. “He has had little choice but to resort to the tactics of the demagog- ic Chicago community organizer, to try and put together a narrow winning coalition,” Nichols explains. Polls show Obama has been losing


the support of the traditional white working class since before the mid-


10 NEWSMAX | AUGUST 2012 CONTRACEPTION SPECIAL INTEREST Catering to his base might help Obama, but the strategy could backfire.


term elections of 2010. Gallup surveys have tracked the president’s numbers among whites since his election in 2008, and the president has been drop- ping heavily among the various sub- constituencies that were mostly sup- portive of him in 2008: adults under 35, “waitress moms,” college-educated women, unmarried women and young adults, and postgraduate women, to name a few. “Just about every group, subgroup,


and sub-subgroup of white voters has declined sharply,” says Dr. Lara Brown of Villanova University. Obama’s response? Brown points to his newfound support for gay marriage, amnesty for the children of ille- gal immigrants, and using contraception as a wedge issue. Nichols says this resonates well


within elite media/entertainment and professional/intelligentsia circles, “But has been cratering Obama’s sup- port amongst all other white voters,” he says.


Dave Paleologos, pollster and polit-


ical scientist at Suffolk University, says a strategy of “divide and conquer” can be effective if well executed. “But the ultimate objective of divide and conquer is to capture enough slices to constitute a majority of the pie. The challenge for the Obama campaign is to gain slices of Obama’s job disap- proval pie which currently makes up a majority of likely voters,” he says. He adds that Obama hasn’t cap-


Moderate Democrats could find themselves squeezed out.


tured those voters yet due to the econ- omy. “The president is playing to his natural bases, but that doesn’t get him the additional votes he needs. It just solidifies the votes he probably already had and currently, those voters make up less than a majority.”


Despite polls that show Obama


with a narrow lead in several swing states, Paleologos says his simulations at Suffolk have him losing both Ohio and Florida because his ballot test and job approval numbers in both states are stuck in the 46-47 percent range.


GAY MARRIAGE


IMMIGRATION


IMMIGRATION/AP IMAGES / CONTRACEPTION/©PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE/ZUMAPRESS.COM / GAY MARRIAGE/KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92