Where’s OFA? The pro-amnesty rally in front of the U.S. Capitol was described as “massive” on my local NPR station even before it had taken place. Here is an NBC newscast with a pretty good photo-not an up-close photo, but one that lets you gauge the size of the crowd. It’s not massive! It’s not even very large. I’d say 10,000 or fewer.
Obama’s new high-tech political machine, Organizing for Action, doesn’t seem to have played a huge role in the rally. It declared a “week of action” on immigration, but that was last week. (You missed it?) . Why is OFA not making its presence known on the President’s biggest possible domestic legislative achievement? 1) OFA isn’t all it’s cracked up to be–or at least isn’t up and running yet; 2) OFA is sandbagging all of us, giving us the impression it’s a paper tiger in order to lull us to sleep before it unleashes its full social-media-driven populist fury when the amnesty bill is on the Senate floor; 3) OFA is cunning, having realized that big marches at which illegal immigrants demand amnesty from the country they are not supposed to be in actually turns voters off; 4) OFA, and other organizers, are trying, but there’s just not as much popular demand for amnesty as we have been led to believe. It’s the press, political, and business elite that is obsessed with producing an amnesty, not the populace–even on the pro-amnesty side. …**
P.S.: I went to an L.A. “action,” a demonstration outside Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Westwood office. There were about 400 demonstrators, by my estimate–mainly union types (SEIU). Unimpressive photo here. The usual splinter-group signs about how I may think Mexicans are in my country but actually I am on Mexican land were absent, as were the tens of thousands of ordinary Piolin listeners who made the 2006 Gran Marcha so gran (impressive photo here). No Mexican flags, no U.S. flags. No flags of any kind! Asians were given token prominence at the microphone, but the crowd was 95% Latino (and zero percent African-American). Unintentionally revealing slogan on poster demanding extended family unification: “No one left behind.”
P.P.S.: NBC’s Tom Costello gives the impression that the pending “Gang of 8” compromise is a deal worked out between “both sides,” as opposed to a deal between 8 amnesty supporters, who may or may not have enough votes in the Senate. …
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**Update: But why the huge 2006 turnout, and the feeble 2013 turnout, among Latinos? Possibilities: 1) The bad economy gives Hispanic-American citizens other priorities; 2) The youthful “DREAMers” feel they’ve now been taken care of by Obama’s executive action, Why march?; 3) It’s all about respect. Latinos felt disrespected (rightly or wrongly) by the Sensenbrenner legislation of 2006. Now, after Romney’s loss, they’re getting plenty of respect–pols are going out of their way to appeal to them, the MSM is filled with talk about the non-white future, certainly there’s little incendiary language on the airwaves. The respect battle’s been won. Why march?4) Amnesty triumphalists, echoed by the MSM, have given the false impression that the legislative battle is also effectively over. …
