For 40 years the "Southern Strategy" has been a staple of liberal political history. The story goes that Republicans under Nixon got tough on crime in order to appeal to racist white Southerners– who apparently would have been okay with rising rape and murder rates as long as rednecks were the primary suspects.
But now, Obama and the Democrats are doing precisely what they accuse (mostly dead) Republicans of having done. They are deliberately picking a fight over immigration reform and fanning fears of cops stopping people for LWL–Living While Latino– in order to fire up the base and make Hispanic voters afraid to vote Republican.
Harry Reid is blatantly pushing for the issue because he needs Latino voters to show up in droves for him to have any chance of winning; and Obama would love to have the issue for the next 2 years, if need be, to help with his re-election– though he'd MUCH rather have 12 million new voters!
The President was pretty open about it: (Click NewsReal link above for the video)
OBAMA: They see these elections as a chance to put their allies back in power and to undo all that we've accomplished. So this year I need your help once more. It will be up to each of you to make sure that the young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again.
Yep, notice anyone missing? Kind of openly cutting somebody out. Hmmm who could it be?
So much for the post-racial President.