Latinos Blame Both Parties On Immigration Reform - Hotline On Call

More than a third of Latino voters blame both parties in Congress for not trying hard enough to pass immigration reform, and Latino enthusiasm for voting in this year's mid-term elections is down, a new poll shows.

Those findings of an election-year tracking poll by Latino Decisions -- released this week and to be updated weekly -- underscore Latino voter dismay over the lack of progress on immigration, an issue that ranks second in importance to them, behind the economy, says one analyst...

While 76% of Latinos surveyed say they are following news and politics about the November elections closely, just 44% said they are very enthusiastic about voting. And a majority of those surveyed said they were less excited about both Democrats and Republicans today, than they were in '08.

While 32% say they are more excited about the Democrats since the '08 election, 51% are less excited today. For the Republicans, just 20% are more excited versus 60% who are less excited....

The poll found that 64.6% of the Latino registered voters approved of the job being done by the president, which is down from 73% in March, and from his high mark of 81% at his 100-day mark as president.

Latino voters were at the center of Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008. But Obama has decided he doesn't really need their votes, as he follows the Rahm Emanuel line of thinking that doing anything on immigration that's not reactionary is too much of a political risk, even though it would seem that the effects of Latinos not voting is greater than the effects of alienating the center-right.

On the economy, Latino voters are if anything more progressive than their white counterparts, as they are much more familiar with the damage routinely done to them by greedy corporations and therefore are much more receptive to a populist message along the lines that Drew Westen proposed.

And the world will live as one