Republicans embarrass themselves with Latinos while Obama makes a bold move

The role of Latinos in the 2012 election is going to come into sharp focus over the next week as both President Obama and Mitt Romney speak at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials next Thursday in Orlando.

So lets remind ourselves where things stand right now based on a poll from Latino Decisions that I highlighted a few days ago.



To set the stage for Mr. Romney on this one, the RNC put up a new website, RNClatinos.com. Only there was one problem. Here's the header they used for the site.



Think Progress nailed them.

RNClatinos.com, the Republican National Committee’s new website aimed at Latino voter outreach, uses a stock photograph of Asian children as its banner picture.

The stock photo found on Shutterstock is listed with tags including “asia, asian, cheeks, children, cool… interracial, japanese… thailand, together, trendy.” But the words ‘hispanic’ or ‘latino’ are nowhere on the page.

No racism there, huh? After all, they don't "see" color. Its simply "us white folks" and all of "them."

But that's not the end of it. TPM also found this on the site.

The main page features a straw poll asking visitors whether they’re disappointed with President Obama, a talking point Republicans have been pushing as part of their outreach effort. As of Thursday evening, however, Obama was winning the unscientific survey 55 percent to 45 percent — highly unusual on a partisan website.

This is what happens when you want to pretend to care about something but don't really give a shit. It shows.

Meanwhile, today President Obama will make a big announcement in the White House Rose Garden.

The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.

The policy change, described to The Associated Press by two senior administration officials, will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation. It also bypasses Congress and partially achieves the goals of the so-called DREAM Act, a long-sought but never enacted plan to establish a path toward citizenship for young people who came to the United States illegally but who have attended college or served in the military.

Yep, he's tired of waiting for the obstructionist Republicans in Congress to move. So once again he's going to do what he can on his own. These young people will still need the DREAM Act in order to gain citizenship. But at least they'll be able to let go of the fear of deportation.

Any further questions about the stark CHOICE in front of us for this election?