Start with Hispanic voters, whose electoral heft keeps growing as they comprise an ever-larger portion of the electorate. Hispanics now favor President Obama over Romney by more than two to one, according to a recent Pew poll.
The movement of Hispanics into the Democratic camp has been going on for decades. What are Republicans doing to woo them back? Replicating California Republican Governor Pete Wilson's disastrous support almost twenty years ago for Proposition 187 -- which would have screened out undocumented immigrants from public schools, health care, and other social services, and required law-enforcement officials to report any "suspected" illegals. (Wilson, you may remember, lost that year's election, and California's Republican Party has never recovered.)
Anniversary No. 1: Exactly four years ago, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection. In the days and weeks that followed, we saw the unfolding of the dramatic — and ultimately successful — effort by the federal government to rescue the banking system. But, once the dust settled, we began to see something else: like the stock market crash of 1929, Lehman wasn’t an isolated event. Rather, it was a signal that deep problems had enveloped our economy — problems that wouldn’t be solved quickly or easily. That is why the Lehman bankruptcy still resonates. It was the moment everything changed.
Win, lose or draw in November, the Republican Party is over, finished, kaput. How do I know? Tampa tells me so — -and demographics.
At what should have been the culmination of four years of relentless plotting against President Obama, and in an election cycle that was its to lose, the GOP self-destructed, staging a convention that never got off the ground. It started and stopped and sputtered in between.
But it wasn't because of Tropical Storm Isaac. The rain or shine outside had nothing to do with the climate inside, where conditions were inclement at best. Fact is: hardly anyone really likes Mitt Romney, even people who say they do — and it showed. He's everybody's Cracker Jack box without a prize, the kid to whose birthday party no one wants to be invited to, even though his house has a swimming pool. He's the would-be head of the richest and most powerful nation on earth, from whom you wouldn't buy a vacuum cleaner without a money-back guarantee.
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