Archive for the ‘Financial Crisis’ Category
Viva Las Vegas
Oct24
By John Feehery
Politicians in Washington rushed Nevada into Statehood in 1864 to assure Abraham Lincoln a comfortable margin in his bid for reelection smack dab in the middle of the Civil War, and ever since then, the Silver State has played a unique role in American political history.
Nevada is mostly desert, so it has always been a bit creative in how it has looked at its growth potential. In the early 1900’s, it went the libertarian route, allowing prostitution and gambling, as way to draw more settlers from California. It worked, and Nevadans found a formula that has kept it growing for most of its relatively short history. That is, up until the Obama years.
It was Bugsy Siegel who first thought of building a strip in Las Vegas and the mobsters that followed him gave the city its well-deserved moniker of “Sin City.” An ad campaign that ran a few years ago – “What Goes In Vegas, Stays in Vegas” – helped cement that reputation.
Las Vegas is not necessarily family-friendly. You drive into the city and you see ads on the billboards that would make you blush if you were going with your inquisitive five-year old, for example. In fact, it has one of the highest crime rates in the country, although most of that is attributed to boorish behavior by out of town visitors.
Barack Obama has been very, very bad for Las Vegas. At the height of the economic collapse, Obama publicly urged companies not to have their retreats in Vegas. What he failed to realize is that all of those corporate gatherings helped employ all of those poor suckers who swept Obama into office the first time (and hopefully, the last time).
Obama has done nothing to fix the housing mess, and in fact, all of his proposals have made the situation worse. Mitt Romney stumbled onto the truth when he said that the only way out of the morass is for the market to hit a real bottom, so that investors can have some confidence that this indeed is a good time to buy.
Obama’s strategy has been to give homeowners temporary life-lines, and then pass laws making it harder for banks to loan. Nice going.
Nevada has an interesting mix of people. The biggest religious group is Catholics, at 25 percent, many Hispanic, but a good percentage of whom are Irish and Italian. Mormons make up the second biggest religious sect at around 15 percent, and the third largest denomination is Southern Baptist, which claims about 12 percent of the population. None of these religions or denominations can be called socially liberal or libertarian. And yet Nevada’s biggest city is a paragon of vice for all the world to enjoy.
That makes for some interesting politics. Nevada has correctly picked every eventual Presidential winner since 1912, except when it voted against Jimmy Carter and for Gerry Ford (that turned out to be the right vote).
It voted twice for Bill Clinton, twice for George W. Bush, and once for Barack Hussein Obama. Mr. Obama is visiting there again today in the hopes of convincing Nevadans that he isn’t the disaster that he seems to be. In other words, he wants them to not believe their eyes, but be beguiled by his voice.
The gamblers in Las Vegas took a big gamble by going all in for the President last time around. My guess is that they won’t make that same mistake next November.
Rubio and the Hispanic Vote
Oct21
By John Feehery
Marco Rubio
Chris Matthews thought he would get me with his question on Marco Rubio. He asked me, breaking news style, what I thought about the revelations that Rubio’s family fled Cuba two whole years before Castro came to power.
I didn’t scratch my head on camera, but I did so in my mind.
What the hell is the big deal, I thought.
Not knowing a thing about this “breaking story”, I didn’t give much of an answer. I mumbled something about Rubio being a rising star in the party and then the segment ended.
But having read the story this morning, I have a better sense of what is going on here.
The Democrats are desperately afraid that Mitt Romney is going to pick Rubio to be his Vice Presidential candidate, and they are getting the Washington Post to do its bidding.
I don’t know if Romney is going to pick Rubio and I don’t know if Rubio would accept such an offer (he says he won’t), but I do know that the R and R ticket would spell the doom of Mr. Obama and his ill-fated administration.
The Hispanic vote is critically important in this election, and even more important in coming elections. Putting Rubio on the ticket is no guarantee that Hispanic voters will somehow flock to the GOP (in fact, the Cuban vote already swings Republican), but it scares the Democrats enough that they are digging through each inch of the Marco file to see what’s in there.
The Obama Administration is vulnerable when it comes to this key voting bloc. He promised a comprehensive immigration bill, but failed to live up to his promise, and nothing got done on the issue. Instead, he has kicked more Hispanics out of the country than any other President in history (almost half a million). And the Obama economy has hit the Hispanic community harder than anybody else, with the exception of African-Americans.
Republicans have an opportunity, but they have to stop beating the hell out of the immigrant community. The Alabama law is especially offensive (and really stupid, too).
Alabama is not exactly the first choice for most Hispanic immigrants, and they have a pretty low number of them in their state. The Hispanics that are there are critically important to Alabama agriculture sector and they are the only ones who have the patience to work in chicken factories.
Because they couldn’t help themselves, conservative Alabama legislators passed the toughest immigration law in the land, and now all the Hispanics are leaving the state, and going to other places. And now, Alabama farmers and poultry companies have nobody to do the jobs necessary to make their businesses run. Nice going, guys.
I appreciate the idea that illegal immigrants shouldn’t get federal (or state) benefits. If you are in the country illegally, you shouldn’t get welfare, Medicaid, or education benefits. That should be reserved to those who play by the rules.
But going on witch-hunts against illegal aliens and the businesses that hire them seems to me to be a bit counter-productive, as long as they otherwise follow the laws.
Republicans should stick to the message of keeping government benefits away from illegals, which I think is especially powerful with the Republican base, without demonizing and prosecuting non-documented workers who otherwise are playing by the rules.
Marco Rubio is a rising star in the Republican party and on the national stage, and this story in the Post shouldn’t in any way diminish his star-power. But Republicans shouldn’t put all of their eggs in the Rubio basket if they hope to win more Hispanic votes in the future. They have to stop demonizing hard-working people who are doing their best to achieve the American dream.
