In the background as I filled out my Cleveland Stonewall Democrats endorsement questionnaire was Barack giving his speech today on immigration reform. It reminded me of his Philadelphia speech on race during the campaign. No applause interruptions, because it was weighty. He finished by quoting Emma Lazarus’ poem on the Statue of Liberty. Like the race speech, this one will be quoted in history books.
The political calculation to emphasize immigration reform in this mid-term election is risky, but I think a good idea for Barack and for Democrats. Nothing repulses independent voters than the way Republicans let their freak flag fly over immigration. Republicans are already divided along teabagger lines, and they will divide themselves more over this speech, and any push in Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. So we’ll see how that plays out in November.
But as is Barack’s tendency, this speech stayed quite a bit above all that.
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