Even though the law explicitly forbids the practice of profiling by Arizona law enforcement officials, its critics, including left wing advocates for amnesty for illegal aliens, claim that it will inevitably lead to such practices. However, in its challenge to the law in federal court, the Justice Department lawsuit argues only that the state law unconstitutionally infringes on the sole right of the federal government to determine immigration policies.

The defenders of the Arizona law counter that it merely seeks to enforce on the state level federal law which has long been on the books, and that it is necessary because the federal government’s failure to adequately patrol the borders. This has led to an explosion in violent crime by illegal immigrant in areas of Arizona along the Mexican border. The new law requires Arizona police officers to determine the immigration status of people they stop for other offenses only if there is a “reasonable suspicion” that they might be illegal immigrants.

 

Polls show that the measure is popular, not only with almost 60 percent of Arizona voters, but also with voters in other Western states, several of which are now seriously considering passing similar statutes of their own. A national survey taken in May found that 73 percent of Americans support a law like the one in Arizona. A national Rasmussen survey found that 56% of Americans oppose the Justice Department lawsuit against the Arizona law, while only 28% support it.

 

PUSHING THE GULF DRILLING MORATORIUM

 

Another state in which the best interests of a state’s population clash with the Obama administration’s liberal philosophy is Louisiana. Its economy will continue to suffer due to the White House’s refusal to accept the ruling last month by a federal court judge overturning the six month moratorium which Obama imposed on all deepwater drilling off the Gulf coast in the wake of the BP oil spill.

 

The White House has ignored the anguished protests of elected Democrats in Louisiana who point out that the drilling ban, combined with other economic impacts of the oil spill, destroys any hope for hundreds of thousands of Louisiana workers to find gainful employment in the foreseeable future. When the judge refused a Justice Department request that he stay his order cancelling the moratorium, the Interior Department, on Obama’s orders, issued a new drilling moratorium decree last week.

 

Oil industry experts warn that once the rigs shut down by the moratorium are moved to fulfill drilling contracts for other deepwater oil fields around the world, it could be years until they return to resume drilling in the Gulf.

 

FINREG ANOTHER MIXED BLESSING

 

Yet another dubious “accomplishment” of the Obama administration was the delayed passage and signing into law this week of the financial regulation “finreg” legislation. On one level, it is an overdue response to the unregulated trading and speculation which led to the financial crisis two years ago and triggered the devastating worldwide economic slowdown.

 

But on another level, it is a major expansion of government control over this country’s leading financial institutions, including a myriad of new regulations whose ultimate impact on all aspect of the American economy is unknown.

 

Finreg adds yet another element of uncertainty for businessmen and investors, making them reluctant to commit to the creation of new jobs in an environment in which they will face rising taxes, fees and new government regulations whose full dimensions are not yet clear.

 

“The White House will call this a victory,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. R-Ky. “But as credit tightens, regulations multiply and job creation slows even further as a result of this bill, they’ll have a hard time convincing the American people that this is a victory for them.”

 

OBAMA KEEPS PUSHING HIS OWN AGENDA

 

Instead of listening to the voices of millions of American voters who are concerned about the security of this country’s borders and putting jobless Americans back to work, President Obama has launched a nationwide speaking campaign which attempts to buttress Democrat hopes in November using the same anti-Bush administration rhetoric and issues which he used to win the White House two years ago. Obama denies that he has failed to deliver on his promises since taking office 18 months ago. He insists that his liberal tax and deficit spending policies are working to restore prosperity, while paying only lip service to the greatest concern to voters today, the stubbornly high unemployment rate and runaway deficit spending.

 

Obama is still pushing his liberal agenda while trying to convince voters that the “vicious recession” which is still with us is the fault of “a decade of irresponsibility” by Republicans.

 

In a speech he delivered at a fundraiser for a Missouri Democrat running for the US Senate, Obama said that the voters now face “a choice between the policies that got us into this mess in the first place and the policies that are getting us out of this mess.”

 

WHAT HAPPENED TO POST-PARTISAN OBAMA?

 

Abandoning all pretenses that he was trying to reach out to Republicans to fulfill his 2008 campaign promise to reduce the level of partisanship in Washington, Obama demeaned Republicans, comparing them to irresponsible teenagers who had driven the family car into a ditch, and did not deserve to be trusted with the power to govern.

 

“These folks drove the economy into a ditch, and they want the keys back. And you’ve got to say the same thing to them that you say to your teenager: You can’t take the keys back, because you don’t know how to drive yet,” Obama said.

 

Obama and key members of his White House team, whenever asked about the disappointing economic numbers, try to quickly shift the subject from their own performance to the responsibility of their predecessors in the Bush administration for the country’s current economic problems.

 

“It’s our responsibility now,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s senior adviser in an interview Sunday, “but let’s be clear about how we got into the mess we’re in. Cleaning up the mess is our responsibility. Creating it was theirs.”

 

Axelrod also denied that the timing of the federal lawsuit against the Arizona law and Obama’s renewed commitment to the passage of an immigration reform bill meant that he was ignoring the problems facing the economy.

 

“That doesn’t mean we can’t have a good, healthy debate about the economy and other issues,” Axelrod said.

 

VOTERS ARE NOT BUYING IT

 

The polls show that most of the voting public simply does not believe that Obama’s policies are “getting us out of this mess,” and many economists are now predicting that as the November election gets closer, the economic indicators will get even worse.

 

The economic numbers support the contention of the Republicans and Tea Party activists who accuse the administration of squandering taxpayer money by creating an even larger and more intrusive government, which will further inhibit the recovery.

 

According to Mark Zandi, the widely quoted chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, Obama’s claim that the recovery has begun is technically correct. But he also points out that “the recovery is losing momentum and the rate of growth is slowing. From a raw political perspective, the hope of [Democrat] incumbents was that even though the economy is still tough, all the trend lines would be moving in the right direction. At this point, that looks less likely.”

 

DEMOCRAT EXCUSES

 

Democrats and White House officials have offered two contradictory explanations or excuses for the failure of Obama’s legislative successes, including the passage of the financial stimulus, health care reform and finreg, to impress the voters. Unwilling to accept the obvious conclusion, that  the voters do not see them as positive developments, the Democrats claim that the public has been misled by the special interests opposed to each of those measures, and will change their minds once they see the benefits. However, after more than a year of Obama and the Democrats touting the accomplishments of the stimulus package, and four months of “explaining” the benefits of health care reform, they  are more unpopular than ever.

 

Another narrative offered by the Democrats to explain Obama’s declining popularity is “bad luck.” They claim that he is the innocent victim of pessimism due to the Greek debt crisis in the spring, followed by the BP oil spill, neither of which were his responsibility. That theory may now be tested with the oil spill apparently coming under control, and fears about a financial meltdown in Europe receding.

 

GROWING DESPAIR AND DISAPPOINTMENT WITH OBAMA

 

But even some Democrats saw those situations differently, faulting Obama for a tardy and inconsistent response to the oil spill in particular. At times, it seemed that the federal response to the oil spill was aimed more at its political fallout, and in some cases, impeded rather than assisted local efforts to contain the damage.

 

Many independent voters feel that Obama deceived them by running for president as a consensus builder, but governing as a big government liberal. At the same time, many liberals feel that he sold out their principles in crafting the stimulus, health care reform and finreg.

 

According to the latest national polls, nearly six in 10 of all American voters say they lack faith in Obama to make the right decisions for the country, a clear majority disapproves of how he is handling the economy, and, for the first time in years, more voters say that they want to see Republicans in charge of Congress than Democrats.

 

Demographically, Obama’s greatest problem is with middle class suburban families, with incomes between $35,000 and $100,000 a year, who have been hit the hardest by the disappearance of good paying American jobs, and whose standard of living has stagnated or slowly deteriorated. They do not believe that Obama and the liberal Democrats really care about their plight, or share their values, and see the administration’s legislative priorities as overlooking the country’s most pressing needs.

 

According to US News and World Report publisher Mort Zuckerman, who was an Obama supporter during the 2008 campaign, “the hope that fired up the election of Barack Obama has flickered out, leaving a national mood of despair and disappointment. Americans are dispirited over how wrong things are and uncertain they can be made right again.”

 

THE VANISHING AMERICAN DREAM

 

Zuckerman writes of “the deepening fear among the public that the American dream is vanishing before their eyes.”He points out that, “many people who joined the middle class, especially those who joined in the last few years, have now fallen back [and] it’s not over yet.”

 

Millions of hard-working, middle class Americans have lost their jobs with little prospect of finding new ones. As a result, they cannot make the minimum payments on their credit cards, or their monthly mortgages. They are increasingly bitter and disillusioned, and who can blame them? They have lost their faith in Obama and his campaign promises, and are furious with his policies which most believe are leading this country in the wrong direction.

 

MOST OF THE STIMULUS MONEY WAS WASTED

 

As an outgrowth of the disappointing pace of the economic recovery, Obama and the Democrats have been unable to put to rest the widespread belief that the $787 billion economic recovery act that they passed last year has not justified its costs. Most voters agree with Republican critics of the stimulus that most of the money was wasted on increased welfare benefits, one-shot tax cuts, subsidies for bloated state budgets and payments to retirees, and short term spending projects. As a result, the positive effects of the stimulus on the overall economy is already starting to fade, leaving behind little more than a huge increase in the national debt, which taxpayers will be paying off for decades.

 

Obama is still claiming that his administration’s “green energy” initiatives will generate 700,000 jobs over the next few years. But so far Obama’s “green energy” spending programs have produced few new jobs at a huge cost. In addition, the US is still lagging behind countries like China which are the current leaders in “green energy” technology.

 

According to Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center, more than two years after the recession began, the public remains deeply skeptical about government policies which promise recovery, and has become “hypersensitive” to news about the health of the economy in general, and job growth in particular.

 

A Pew survey taken last month found that only 33 percent of Americans believe that the stimulus package had improved the job situation, while 60 percent said that it had not.

 

“So far Obama’s gotten nowhere convincing people that his big programs have worked,” Kohut said. “You get only a third of the public, mostly Democrats, who think the stimulus has done something.”

 

STATE EMPLOYEES TO BE HIT NEXT

 

Nowhere will the failure of Obama’s economic policies be felt more strongly in coming months than in state governments across the country. They had counted on a repeat of last year’s federal bailouts in the stimulus package to help them close their yawning budget deficits which now total $90 billion dollars.

 

Many of those states had written those bailouts into their budget plans for the new fiscal year. They were dismayed earlier this summer when those subsidies were largely removed from another emergency economic stimulus package that Congress was considering. Even the stripped down version of that package, consisting mainly of a few popular tax cut renewal measures and an extension unemployment benefits for those who have been out of a job for more than six months stalled when Democrats up for re-election in November in the House and Senate realized that Republicans would accuse them on the campaign trail of further raising the deficit unless they included measures in the bill which would pay for its costs.

 

PUBLIC PAYROLLS LIKELY TO SHRINK

 

So far, about 200,000 state and local government workers coast to coast have lost their jobs since the recession began in December, 2007. However, experts in state and municipal finance say that the housing bubble over the past decade created an excess in real estate taxes which state and local governments then used to add about 1 million additional workers to their payrolls. These states and municipalities also increased the benefits they paid their other workers at far above the rate of private industry.

 

Even when the economy recovers, the extra real estate tax income which fueled that government employment expansion will not return. That means that state and local governments will have to retrench both their payrolls and workers’ benefits to restore their fiscal stability.

 

This past year, that gap was filled by a one-time infusion of federal stimulus funds. But for the coming fiscal year, state and local governments won’t have that cushion. To remain solvent, they will be forced to make the painful budget cuts the stimulus allowed them to put off last year.

 

This means that over the next few years, the hoped-for revival of job creation in the private sector is likely to be offset, at least in part, by a forced contraction in state and government payrolls. That further dims the hopes of Obama and the Democrats that voters will see a start of substantial job creation, if not in time for this November’s election, then at least before the 2012 presidential election.

 

DEMOCRATS FACE BLEAK ELECTION PROSPECTS

 

In the short term – for this November – even the most optimistic Democrats admit that their prospects look bleak. If current national polling trends continue to hold, Democrats will likely lose their majority control in the House, while holding onto their majority in the Senate by no more than a few seats.

 

Even Democrat strategists concede that Obama’s policies, including his lawsuit against the Arizona law will make the task of Democrats running for election this fall, particularly in Arizona and other Western states, even harder.

 

So why did the administration file that lawsuit now? Apparently in the belief that it would bolster Obama’s support among Hispanic voters across the country when he runs for re-election in 2012. However, that also bolsters the suspicions of many incumbent Democrats running for re-election that the White House considers them to be expendable. They believe that the White House is much more concerned with protecting Obama’s liberal “brand” and his chances to win a second term than their re-election.

 

A SPAT WITH PELOSI

 

Those concerns spilled over last week, prompting bitter statements by House majority leader Nancy Pelosi at a closed-door meeting with her colleagues in the House Democrat caucus. She called a suggestion at a White House press briefing by Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs that the Democrats could lose control of the House as a result of the November election “friendly fire.”

 

Democrat William Pascrell, of New Jersey claimed that he was speaking for many of his House colleagues when he said of the White House, “what they wanted to do is separate themselves from us.” At a House Democrat caucus meeting last week, Pascrell read Gibbs’ comments word for word,  emphasizing the portion which said that the outcome of the midterm elections would depend on “strong campaigns by Democrats.”

 

“What do they think we’ve been doing the last 12 months? We’re the ones who have been taking the tough votes,” Pascrell declared.  Pelosi then added that she agreed with Pascrell’s sentiment, adding, “I disagree on one point, I think you were too kind to Mr. Gibbs,” the Speaker said, according to Democrats who witnessed the exchange. said Pelosi then made White House aide Daniel Turton who was present at the meeting stand up and acknowledge that Gibbs’ comments hurt the Democrats, but Turton also insisted that Gibbs was not trying to put distance between the White House and House Democrats.

 

After Pelosi’s harsh statements were reported in the media, she went to the White House to demand more money and cooperation from the Obama for the midterm election campaign, while Gibbs was forced to make a public declaration that his relationship with the House Speaker remains “cordial,” and that he was confident that Democrats would retain control of the House in the November election.

 

PLAYING FOR THE NATIONAL HISPANIC VOTE

 

The clash between immigration reform (read: amnesty) advocates and supporters of tougher measures to patrol this country’s borders and crack down on illegal immigrants has long been a divisive national issue. In recent years, tougher enforcement of border and immigration regulations has emerged as a priority for the conservative Republican base, which has already been energized by voter anger at Obama’s policies and the Tea Party movement.

 

Until recently, the immigration issue has been seen as something of a double-edged sword for Republicans nationally, making them popular among white voters living in border states who feel threatened by illegal immigration, but energizing even more Hispanic voters nationwide to vote against Republican candidates.

 

The classic case of this was the 1994 California gubernatorial campaign in which Republican Pete Wilson won re-election on the strength of ads supporting Proposition 187, a tough anti-illegal immigration measure. Wilson won re-election, but the lingering resentment that Prop 187 created among Hispanic voters in California cast a dark shadow over the prospects Wilson’s fellow Republican candidates in California for the next decade, and spilled over to Hispanic voters nationwide.

 

In their presidential campaigns, George W. Bush and Senator John McCain did make a serious effort to win the support of Hispanic voters, but achieved little success. However, in this election cycle, both Democrat and Republican analysts believe that the combination of the immigration issue and the concern of many independent white Western voters about jobs will be enough to create a sizable GOP swing vote, at least in this November’s election.

 

WHY OPINION ON IMMIGRATION IN THE WEST HAS TURNED

 

“This is a tough issue for Democrats,” said former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm, a Democrat who is co-director of the Institute for Public Policy Studies at the University of Denver. “Politically, I just can’t think of any place in the West where this [the federal challenge to the Arizona immigration law] is going to play well. This is an issue that is boiling, and it is not one that is going to be a happy outcome for Democrats.”

 

Those Democrats at greatest risk due to the federal lawsuit are three Arizona congressmen facing tough reelection fights in November: Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords. Their pleas to the Obama administration to delay the legal challenge to the Arizona law until after the November election fell on deaf ears.

 

The day it was filed by the Obama Justice Department, Congressman Kirkpatrick called the lawsuit “a sideshow, distracting us from the real task at hand. A court battle between the federal government and Arizona will not move us closer to securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system. Washington failed us on this issue again today, and Arizonans have had enough. Our law enforcement and communities are at risk right now — this is a time for solutions, not new obstacles.”

 

Since signing the immigration law, the popularity of Arizona’s Republican governor, Jan Brewer, has climbed from 41%, the month before she signed it, to 58% of voters in the state today.

 

But most surprising of all, and most ominous for the prospect of Democrats running for public office in the West, was the finding of a poll in Colorado, where several incumbent Democrat congressmen are facing tough reelection battles. It found that 62 percent of the state’s Hispanic voters would favor their state implementing an immigration law similar to the one in Arizona.

 

WHITE HOUSE “TONE-DEAF”

 

Wes Gullett, a former longtime aide to Senator John McCain said that the lawsuit was “manna from heaven” for Republicans.

 

“Obviously, the White House is tone-deaf on Western politics,” said Gullett, who claims that he personally also opposes the Arizona law. “While a lot of people wish that our law wouldn’t go into effect, for the administration to sue on this is crazy. It is just a complete political loser.”

 

Republicans, meanwhile, claim that the lawsuit is further evidence that the Obama administration has abdicated its role in securing the border.

 

“There is a perception that the president is not only out of touch but really asleep at the wheel,” Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks told POLITICO. He and 19 other House Republicans signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder criticizing the administration for filing the lawsuit while ignoring the broader illegal immigration problem.

 

PRO-AMNESTY GROUPS IMPATIENT

 

In response to impatient urging from Hispanic, pro-amnesty and organized labor groups, who see eventual citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal aliens now in this country as a powerful addition to their voter base, Obama has renewed his campaign pledge to push a comprehensive immigration reform through Congress. However, because it is such a political hot potato, that effort has been postponed by the White House at least until next year.

 

One pro-immigration reform group opposes the challenge to the Arizona law, for purely tactical reasons. ImmigrationWorks USA claims to be a national federation of small business owners. The group’s president, Tamar Jacoby, fears that the backlash against the popular Arizona law could make the passage of a comprehensive reform bill next year even more difficult. Jacoby is particularly concerned that the lawsuit could alienate Republicans who might otherwise support the reform measure, such as Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona.

 

“This [lawsuit] is tantamount to dropping a nuclear bomb on the senator they need most to pass comprehensive immigration reform,” Jacoby said. “If Jon Kyl is on the warpath against you, just forget it. Don’t bother.”

 

DEMOCRAT GOVERNORS FEEL THREATENED

 

White House officials got the same message earlier this past month in Boston from a group of Democrat governors at the summer meeting of the National Governors Association who see the lawsuit as an unwelcome distraction from what should be the party’s main message in the midterm election campaign, the weak economy.

 

“Universally the governors are saying, ‘We’ve got to talk about jobs,’” Democrat Governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee said in an interview with the New York Times. “And all of a sudden we have immigration going on. It is such a toxic subject, at such an important time for Democrats.”

 

Bredesen said that in Tennessee, Democrat candidates were already on the defensive over health care reform, and would be further weakened by the lawsuit against Arizona. He was particularly critical of its timing. “Maybe you do that when you’re strong, but not when there’s an election looming out there.”

 

Nationwide, twelve Democrat governors will be stepping down from office and seven more are seeking re-election in November. Republicans believe that a significant number of gubernatorial pickups this year could help their chances to win back the White House in 2012.

 

Most of the Democrat governors attending the Boston meeting, were visibly reluctant to come out in wholehearted support of the administration’s lawsuit. “I might have chosen both a different tack and a different time,” said Governor Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, one of the Democrats who chose to step down rather than face a tough fight for re-election. “This is an issue that divides us politically, and I’m hopeful that their [White House] strategy doesn’t do that in a way that makes it more difficult for candidates to get elected, particularly in the West.”

 

A WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS FAILURE

 

Democrat Governor Christine Gregoire of Washington, who is not running for re-election this year, emerged from a meeting with senior White House staff members complaining that the Obama administration has done a poor job of proving to the American public that it is serious about the problem of illegal immigration.

 

“They described for me a list of things that they are doing to try and help on that border. And I said, ‘The public doesn’t know that.’ We’ve got a message void, and the only thing we’re hearing is that they’re filing a lawsuit,” Gregoire said in describing her meeting with White House aides.

 

Another Democrat governor attending the Boston meeting, Martin O’Malley of Maryland was reportedly expressing opposition to the lawsuit in private meetings, while publicly claiming to support it.

 

One of the few Democrat governors willing to endorse the federal lawsuit explicitly was  Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a state in which Hispanics make up 45% of the population, and more than 35% of the voters. He has proudly touted his Hispanic heritage throughout his long political career, and is barred by term limits from running for re-election. He called the concerns of his fellow Democrats over the lawsuit “misguided,” and predicted that it will make Obama even more popular with Hispanic voters nationally.

 

ARIZONA GOVERNOR CONFIDENT OF VICTORY

 

Republican governors at the Boston meeting were uniformly critical of the federal lawsuit, saying it infringed on states’ rights.

 

“I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that almost every state in America next January is going to see a bill similar to Arizona’s,” said Governor Dave Heineman of Nebraska, a Republican seeking re-election.

 

Arizona’s Governor Brewer, who is at the focus of the controversy, called the federal lawsuit “outrageous” and said that her state was receiving donations from around the country to help fight it.

 

“I think Arizona will win,” Brewer said, “and we will take a position for all of America.”

 

As the November midterm election approaches, that optimism is spreading throughout the re-energized Republican voter base, and their candidates.