Florida Latin Connection

If there’s anything close to a political certainty in 2012, it’s that Barack Obama will get more than 90 percent of the African-American vote.

But that doesn’t mean every black Obama supporter will vote for him happily — nor does it guarantee that turnout will approach the stratospheric levels of 2008, even though Obama needs a huge showing from his base to offset the expected loss of swing voters in states like North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

With that in mind, prominent black leaders — fearing Obama is not only taking them for granted but avoiding them in public — have turned up the heat on the nation’s first African-American president, transforming all-in-the-family concerns into open criticism of the president at a time when they had hoped the completion of a monument to Martin Luther King Jr. near the National Mall would bring a moment of unity.

The leaders are tired, they say, of Obama dog-whistling his support for a broad black agenda rather than explicitly embracing the kind of war on racism, poverty and economic segregation embodied by King.

“You can spend a lot of time trying to win over white independents, but if you don’t pay attention to your base, African-Americans, if you have not locked up your base yet, you’ve got a serious problem,” said CNN contributor Roland Martin.

“African-Americans will vote for him again, 88, 92, 95 percent. The question is what’s the turnout? I’ll vote for you. But will I bring ten other people along, like I did in 2008? That’s the danger here for him. He doesn’t have the historical factor to lean on as much in 2012 as he did in 2008. … And the first step is that he has to be willing to speak to this audience, black people.”

In a striking turnabout for a president who has rewritten American racial history, Obama finds himself the target of criticism from the black cultural and political elite that has, for the most part, been leery of airing its disappointment.

The president is reportedly angry that African-American leaders aren’t crediting him for his hard-bought achievements that will especially help communities of color, including health care reform, aid to cities, student aid and protecting Medicaid.

“The whole thing is bull——. … We have met with [black leaders] more than any other group, and we are increasing our outreach,” said a person close to Obama.

Read More: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62284.html  

Politico/Thrush/Williams/ 08/30/2011

FloridaLatinConnection Staff.

Comments (0) Aug 30 2011

Bachmann listens to Bay of Pigs veteran Felix Rodriguez at Bay of Pigs Museum in Little Havana.

MIAMI — If you’re a Republican seeking the presidency or statewide office, you haven’t really campaigned in Florida until you’ve done the Little Havana tour and partaken of someCastro-bashing and a cortadito at Versailles.

Michele Bachmann‘s initiation came today.

PostPolitics/ Bennett/ 08/30/2011

FloridaLatinConnection Staff.

Comments (0) Aug 30 2011

Sen. Marco Rubio’s mother suffered her second stroke in as many weeks, causing the lawmaker to cancel events today in Orlando and Lakeland.

Oria Rubio, who proudly watched her son during campaign events late last year, had a stroke two weeks ago but was doing better. “Over the last 48 hours, she has experienced additional setbacks that require Senator Rubio to remain in Miami with her,” spokesman Alex Burgos said.

Rubio, 40, lost his father to emphysema and lung cancer in September 2010. The sacrifices of his Cuban immigrant parents — and the promise of America — has often been a theme of Rubio’s political speeches, sometimes bringing audiences to tears.

Rubio planned to attend a medical-related roundtable today in Orlando followed by a tea party gathering in Lakeland. Tomorrow, he had planned on being in Lakeland for a human trafficking awareness event.

SPT/Leary/ 08/30/2011

FloridaLatinConnection Staff.

Comments (0) Aug 30 2011

Mitt Romney will open his Florida headquarters in Tampa on Friday. He was already scheduled to be in town to appear before the Republican National Hispanic Assembly convention.

SPT/Leary/ 08/30/2011

FloridaLatinConnection Staff. 

Comments (0) Aug 30 2011

EDITORIAL 

As new polls show, Democrats have a difficult path in the forthcoming elections in 2012. Even though a large majority of the American people recognize that President Obama is an honest, dedicated, hard working family man with a deep respect for the compliance of the law, his opposition is working hard to discredit him.

Although, even within the majority who believe the President is a decent man, many do not like him by going to the negotiating table  and agrees to make the middle class and the poor pay with the cost of the crisis. Especially having to extend large concessions to the Tea Party in order to reduce the huge debt created mostly by Republican administrations. For these reasons, many consider Obama a weak and inexperienced President when negotiating with the radical minority who work in favor of the richest one percent of the country. The same minority more interested in winning next election, not touching the privileged who support theirs political campaigns and the loopholes on the laws, than bringing health to the economy and the good of the country.

The United States is divided and radicalizing by the day. Still suffering from a high level of unemployment, slow economic recovery and the many obstacles the Tea Party is forcing the Republican leadership to impose.  All without a true understanding of the cause; rules to follow in this economy and forgetting the two foreign wars, Iraq and Afghanistan that has continued adding billions to the giant economic debt. Yet the same Tea Party minority continues to make it harder on the recovery of the economy and the well being of society by disagreeing with everything the democrats proposes, denying all kind of solutions to the negotiated crisis and inflicting more damage to the economy.  Yes, everything  is/will be wrong coming from this  ”black” President that they don’t want.

The message for all of us is clear: They’d like nothing more than a return to their racist and outdated position with a goal in mind , to make Pres. Obama “A One Term President.” The well being of the country is secondary. 

Arnoldo Varona, Editor 

www.FloridaLatinConnection.org

Comments (0) Aug 30 2011

The 500 day countdown is ticking toward Florida’s 500th anniversary. It will culminate in a commemoration that will last throughout the year 2013. Gov. Rick Scott initiated the campaign in Miami with leaders from Florida and Spain.

Governor Scott sees the anniversary celebration as a means of spurring new opportunities for businesses while also serving as an educational tool. He helped kick off the VIVA Florida 500 campaign at a business roundtable hosted by the Spain Florida Foundation. Listen here.

SPT/ Jordan/ 08/29/2011

FloridaLatin Connectioin Staff.

Comments (0) Aug 29 2011

Sen. Marco Rubio will spend a few days traveling Florida this week, including a stop in Lakeland to address tea party members. 

The tea party rally is at 1 p.m. tomorrow at Kroon’s Enterprises in Lakeland. Rubio’s office said earlier in the day he will participate in a roundtable discussion at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute at Lake Nona in Orlando.

On Wednesday, he is expected in Clearwater for a human trafficking awareness event. 

SPT/ Leary/ 08/29/2011

FloridaLatinConnection Staff. 

Comments (0) Aug 29 2011

Another Texas governor who drops his “g’s” and scorns elites is running for president and the whispers are the same: lightweight, incurious, instinctual.

Strip away the euphemisms and Rick Perry is confronting an unavoidable question: Is he dumb — or just “misunderestimated?”

Doubts about Perry’s intellect have hounded him since he was first elected as a state legislator nearly three decades ago. In Austin, he’s been derided as a right-place, right-time pol who looks the part but isn’t so deep — “Gov. Goodhair.” Now, with the chatter picking back up among his enemies and taking flight in elite Republican circles, the rap threatens to follow him to the national stage.

“He’s like Bush only without the brains,” cracked one former Republican governor who knows Perry, repeating a joke that has made the rounds.

The Texan’s loyalists reject the suggestion, asserting that it owes to political bias and sour grapes, but Perry himself seems to welcome the low bar. He cracked on the campaign trail earlier this month that the difference between him and Bush was that he went to Texas A&M and the former president attended Yale.

But conversations with both Perry admirers and critics reveal a more complicated assessment about the mind of a politician who has never lost an election — and ranks as the longest-serving governor in Texas history.

He is not an ideas man. Perry hasn’t spent his political career marking up the latest Cato or Heritage white papers or reading policy-heavy books late into the night. Advisers and colleagues have informed much of his thinking over the years.

“He’s not a guy who’s going to go up to the Aspen Institute,” said longtime Texas lobbyist Bill Miller, a Perry fan. “It’s not the way he’s made.”

Read More:  http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62214.html  

Politico/Martin/ 08/29/2011

FloridaLatinConnection Staff.

Comments (0) Aug 29 2011

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/sites/tampabay.com.blogs.the-buzz-florida-politics/files/9-6_fl_young_guns_lunch_invitation.pdf

SPT/Smith/ 08/29/2011

FloridaLatinConnection Staff.

Comments (0) Aug 29 2011

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said Sunday that she would consider oil and natural gas drilling in the Everglades if it can be done without harming the environment.

Bachman said the United States needs to tap into all of its energy resources no matter where they exist if it can be done responsibly.   

“The United States needs to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy and more dependent upon American resourcefulness. Whether that is in the Everglades, or whether that is in the eastern Gulf region, or whether that’s in North Dakota, we need to go where the energy is,” she said. “Of course it needs to be done responsibly. If we can’t responsibly access energy in the Everglades then we shouldn’t do it.” … Read more    

AP/ 08/29/2011

FloridaLatinConnection Staff. 

Comments (0) Aug 29 2011