DREAM turns to Blue Dog Nightmare
by digby
Howie wrote a post the other day that's well worth reading about the political dynamics surrounding the DREAM Act and the Hatch and Lugar races. oo far.
The DSCC has been tweeting up a storm for the past few days about what a "great candidate" Joe Donnelly is and, bizarrely the keep juxtaposing it with tweets about the shame of former DREAM Act co-sponsor Dick Lugar (R-IN) backing out of his support for the bill, which was just reintroduced in both Houses of Congress, by Obama-shill Dick Durbin in the Senate and by Howard Berman (who represents a newly Hispanic-majority L.A. district) in the House. Last time the bill came up it passed narrowly in the Democratic-controlled House, 216-198, only 8 Republicans voting for it (all but 3 no longer serving) and 38 conservative Democrats crossing the aisle in the other direction to vote against it. One of the anti-DREAM team was, of course, DSCC "great candidate" Joe Donnelly. Hold in your mind for a moment that another was Donnelly's fellow Blue Dog, Jim Matheson [now running against Orrin Hatch]. read on ...
This selective use of the DREAM act is cynical in the extreme. Nobody should be playing with these kids' lives and the Party touting Democrats who use this issue to attack Republicans from the right is just sad. Lugar and Hatch whiffed on this issue mostly because of pressure from the right wing of their own party, to be sure. But it certainly didn't help to have right wing Democrats pushing from the same direction and it will undoubtedly keep them from changing back if they win their primaries.
It's very politically shortsighted. These DREAM kids are paying close attention and so is the Hispanic community. They don't like what they see:
On Tuesday night, President Obama sent out a fundraising email about his immigration speech. In this email, the Obama campaign solicits for a contribution on their website and on Facebook using specifically the DREAM Act. Instead of choosing to end our pain, he has chosen to use our suffering to grow his campaign. We find this both disappointing and offensive and demand that the Obama campaign take this ad down immediately.
We are tired of politicians either bashing us or praising us without ending our pain. After the president's speech we knew he was on campaign mode, but these ads just brought insult to our ever-growing pain of achieving the American Dream. Until Congress passes the DREAM Act, the President has the full authority to enable us to temporarily come out of the shadows, work and contribute to our country.
Let's just say that calling anti-DREAM Democrat Joe Donnelly a "great candidate" in the same breath as you are criticizing his opponent for not supporting the DREAM act is certain to be noticed. Not smart.
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