Voters won’t buy just talk from Obama

That was then, this is now. It was in 2008 that a young, fresh, and hungry Barack Obama delivered one of the most impressive campaigns in recent memory, promising, among other things, to fix an unjust immigration system, and build bridges with the other party.

Promise No. 1, Fix immigration. The real way to do this, of course, is to actually engage the policy makers and shakers, those lofty, honest politicians we like to call senators and congressmen. The Obama method, on the other hand, is to traverse the country holding hands and singing Kumbaya with US Rep. Luis Gutierrez, promising the moon. But reality has a funny way of sneaking up on you. In Gutierrez’s own words, “He came to our neighborhoods, he came to our communities, he gave speeches.” Now he looks them in the eye, 3 years later and says, “Hey I really mean it this time. Trust me.” He must really think the Hispanic population is just plain stupid. If he couldn’t do it with a filibuster-proof Democratic majority during his first term, how or why is he going to do it now?

Promise No. 2, build bridges. Without boring you with endless references to the Dark Side of the Force, i.e., the Republicans, let’s look at a recent, full campaign-mode quote. Once again, on TV, in Clinton-speak, he calls them, “alligators in the moat” along the U.S. border for their stance to secure the borders first, talk immigration reform later. So much for steering the nation away from the partisan ways of the past.

People used to believe the words that came out of the salesman’s mouth, because he sounded so sincere. Hard part was, though, you could never go back a second time. Because the folks who bought his snake-oil the first time around, knew better.

They told their friends, and they learned from the past. Question is, will we?

Scott Sinclair

Gurnee