With the 2012 presidential campaign already in full swing, the re-election campaign strategy of President Barack Obama is clearly coming into focus. While it is typically a difficult proposition to electorally defeat a sitting President, this time around Obama is no longer a novelty, and he will be defending a record that is nothing short of indefensible. And even though Obama will enjoy all of the advantages of the Presidency- a support staff and a campaign staff numbering in the hundreds, his (many would argue excessive) use of Air Force One, and 24/7 media coverage that guarantees a significant earned media advantage throughout the campaign- Republicans still have a fantastic opportunity not only to defeat him, but to significantly change the political trajectory of the country.
Obama’s reelection strategy will necessarily be a naked attempt to divide and conquer, and unfortunately, race and ethnicity will be be one of the primary dividing lines that Obama will engage his political opposition, (the other will be along economic class lines), as he cannot run on new ideas or his record. To be certain, Obama’s strategists will leave no stone unturned in their efforts to find donors and supporters they can exercise leverage or influence over, but the largest identifiable demographic group that will be the primary target of the Obama campaign’s efforts will be Latinos and Hispanics.
With the selection of Katherine Archuleta as his 2012 reelection campaign’s political director, Obama has appointed the first Hispanic political director of a major political campaign- as clear signal as any as to which voters Obama is trying to court. The appointment is also additionally significant because Archuleta hails from Colorado, a key battleground state, so her selection amounts to a savvy political move.
What will her outreach to Latinos and Hispanics consist of?
Rest assured, it won’t be an honest defense of Obama’s record, nor will it be an honest discussion of the danger presented to our country by uncontrolled government spending driven by entitlements or the impact of Latin American-style socialist redistribution policies on the middle or lower classes. And it certainly won’t be about how America is more secure place in pursuit of a more coherent foreign policy that can tell our strategic allies (like Colombia) from banana republic dictators (like Chavez’ Venezuela). In all likelihood, Obama will ramp up his identity politics and attempt to stoke misguided passions amongst minorities those who still have a chip on their shoulder towards whites. It was President Obama himself who not long ago suggested that Latinos should “punish” their political “enemies” and falsely imputed racist motives to Republicans whom he claimed wanted to add “moats and alligators” behind a fence along the southern border that isn’t even close to completion.
What will be interesting to see is just how far Archuleta and Obama’s fear-mongering and disinformation will go, but with the President of the United States doing his best impression of a low level community activist on the stump of late, there’s really no limit as to how low the campaign’s acolytes will sink. It’s a safe bet that the campaign itself will continue to demonize the Republican Party as a party largely made up of racists who want “no mas immigracion” and who will immediately put 20 million illegal aliens on buses back to Mexico the moment they take power.
This type of scorched-earth strategy will be the only chance Obama will have to have anywhere near the success he had with Hispanics in 2008, as there is simply no way for him to either re-package himself or honestly market his agenda along with its results to Hispanics that are predominantly socially conservative, independent minded, and mostly cynical towards rehashed socialist policies that have failed for decades in Latin America. Even if Hispanics don’t go out and vote Republican, many of them will stay home if they themselves are caught up in the economic wasteland that Obama’s policies have helped create.
Republicans candidates up and down the ballot must communicate the honest truth about the danger that Obama poses and how his policies are a direct threat to their freedom and their prosperity and do so early and often. With the increasing socialist and authoritarian regimes taking hold in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and now Peru, we are witness to immigrant communities popping up in Florida and across the United States that are fleeing those countries- Republicans would do well to remind Hispanics where it is that Obama’s brand of socialism will certainly lead them.
