The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Ever since President Obama took office in January of 2009, he's spoken out about the need for immigration reform. Much to his dismay, however, through a term and a half, Congress has been negligent on taking action regarding the matter. Democrats feared losing votes on election day and Republicans feared a Democratic President being credited with accomplishing immigration reform, and with that, losing millions of former illegal immigrants to the Democratic Party in coming elections. In other words, the two parties decided their own political futures were more important than proving they deserved political futures by actually working together and accomplishing something in Washington. Upon seeing that there was less chance of Congress working together on the matter than of a dead man winning the lottery, President Obama decided to, like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush before him, take executive action on immigration. This infuriated Congressional Republicans. Some called for a ...

In what I find to be a wise move by the Obama team, the president tried making a deal with the Republican Presidential Nominee, Mitt Romney, today. His campaign manager, Jim Messina, wrote the following: "Dear Matt: I am writing to ask again that the Governor release multiple years of tax returns, but also to make an offer that should address his concerns about the additional disclosures. Governor Romney apparently fears that the more he offers, the more our campaign will demand he provide. So I am prepared to provide assurances on just that point: if the Governor will release five years of returns, I commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more -- neither in ads nor in other public communications or commentary for the rest of the campaign. This request for the release of five years, covering the complete returns for 2007-2012, is surely not unreasonable. Other presidential candidates have released more, including the Governor's father who provide...

There are still about three months to go until the presidential election, but if it were held tomorrow, I think President Obama would likely win. However, with three months to go, there's still a lot that could happen to alter the tides in one direction or another. I do think there's one move Obama could make which would all but assure him of being re-elected - that's make Hillary Clinton his vice presidential candidate. Obama should likely do fairly well with women voters as Democratic candidates tend to do. However, this would likely be the icing on the cake (so to speak) to swing women independent and undecided voters to his/their side. Mitt Romney made his move in announcing Paul Ryan as his running mate and has seen a very slight (below-average) bounce in the polls due to it. While I personally find Joe Biden to be a likable guy, I honestly don't believe from an election standpoint, he either adds or subtracts anything from the president's standing. I believe...