Cheetos, Really?

Barack Obama must be the luckiest politician in America. When he ran for the state senate in Illinois, he successfully challenged the nominating petitions of all three of his opponents. In the primary for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, he faced off against a candidate engulfed in a personal scandal.  During the general election, his GOP opponent was forced to drop out because of a personal scandal, whereupon Obama had only to defeat the infamous Alan Keyes, an extremist who had been a Maryland resident until, oh, a few minutes earlier.  

We all know that as a presidential nominee, Obama merely had to defeat a Republican with such limited judgement as to believe that Sarah Palin would be qualified to become President in a pinch; as a candidate for re-election, he merely had to defeat a Republican with such limited judgement and irresponsibility as to put Paul Ryan a heartbeat from the presidency. (Admittedly, BO did have the good sense to select Joe Biden as his running-mate.)

Now, after Barack Obama has run his last race, the aggressively pro-immigrant "United We Dream" asks on its website that you "add your name to tell President Obama that we won't tolerate him choosing politics over the humanity of immigrants" because he has "further cemented his legacy as the #Deporter in Chief by delaying the usage of his executive authority to stop the extradition of millions of immigrants."  (Credit United We Dream for eschewing "undocumented workers" in favor of "immigrants"; not so much for failing to note no legal immigrant ever is deported.)

But while Barack Obama is unlikely ever to face the voters again, Hillary Clinton in all likelihood will.  Politico's Maggie Haberman observes Mrs.

Clinton, who has said she will decide on a White House run by early next year, has repeatedly been targeted by Dreamers since she re-emerged in politics as a campaign surrogate this fall. The activists are frustrated with President Barack Obama’s delay in taking executive action on immigration reforms, and they are pushing Clinton to be more outspoken on the issue.

And so President Obama's former Secretary of State gets heat from activists.  But, intentionally or otherwise, it's directed not only against her.  Haberman reports

Hillary Clinton was heckled repeatedly during a rally Thursday in potential 2016 rival Martin O’Malley’s home state of Maryland, when more than a dozen pro-immigrant activists staggered their protests so they lasted throughout most of her speech.

The rolling protests by members of the group United We Dream came during a rally at the University of Maryland for Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown. They also came nearly a week after so-called Dreamers interrupted Clinton’s speech in North Carolina, where she was campaigning for Sen. Kay Hagan; the activists reportedly said they were mishandled by officials at that rally when they were being led out.

The group, frustrated by President Obama's policies, protests Hillary Clinton and, for no extra charge, undermines Democratic gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidates.    It's par for the course, though, liberals flocking to the polls (as for Barack Obama, twice) for the Democratic presidential nominee, then lifting not a finger in off-year elections.  Better  to take the advice of Lena Dunham In a video, directed to young women, the actress created to support Planned Parenthood's Action Fund's Women Are Watching Campaign. Beginning at 2:35, she advises

I used to think that all that mattered was to vote for Obama and go back to eating Cheetos and reading gossip magazines.  But the fact is the mid-term elections matter. This is how you keep sexist health care policies from passing.  This is how you keep sexist politicians out of office. This is how you create the change you want.










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