NYT Starting To Get It?
12/29/2011
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The Washington Post has an article on a Pew Hispanic Center poll that gives the usual Rolodex Spin garnered from talking to self-proclaimed Hispanic Leaders about What Hispanics Want (More Hispanics!):

President Obama holds a wide lead among Hispanic voters when matched against potential Republican challengers, even as widespread opposition to his administration’s stepped-up deportation policies act as a drag on his approval ratings among these voters, according to a new poll.

Surprisingly, Julia Preston of the New York Times' article on the same poll comes out and says something I've been saying since 2002: When you ask Hispanic likely voters which issues are their priorities, Immigration generally comes in down around The Environment. The NYT explains

The Pew Hispanic poll offers some clues to why Mr. Obama’s immigration policy, which has been loudly criticized by many Latino organizations, has not done more to hurt his standing with Latino voters. 

Among registered Latino voters, immigration is not a primary concern. For Latino voters, immigration is sixth in importance, the poll found. 

Their top three issues are jobs, education and health care, the same issues identified as most important by Latino voters before the midterm elections in 2010 and the presidential vote in 2008, Pew pollsters found. On these issues, Latinos appear to trust Democrats more.

 

For years, a small number of unimportant, uncharismatic, uninfluential Latino "leaders" have been — mostly by promptly returning phone calls from East Coast reporters — conniving with the national media to whip up Hispanic racial fury. But, not many Hispanics read the Washington Post, apparently,  so this seemingly dangerous campaign has had relatively little real world impact. In the world of campaign strategy talk, however, it has become mostly unchallenged wisdom. 

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