Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire Town Hall Sparsely Attended

Funny how the media reports I saw didn't mention that Hillary's event was mostly half full, if that.

See Ed Henry, on Twitter, ".@hillaryclinton town hall tonight in New Hampshire #concord #emptyseats," and "Wide shot @HillaryClinton event in #concord -- on positive side crowd enthusiastic, Clinton finding voice on message."

Hat Tip: Legal Insurrection, "Hillary New Hampshire Town Hall Empty."

Will Donald Trump's Poll Ratings Collapse After Second #GOPDebate?

Personally, I think Carly Fiorina won the debate, and I'm not the only one. See Mark Hemingway, at the Weekly Standard, "Carly Fiorina, The Anti-Hillary."

And while Fiorina's going to get some kind of bump in the polls, the $64 million question is whether Donald Trump's going to take a dive. Some folks thought he gave a fine performance, at WaPo, for example, "Fiorina emerges in GOP debate, but Trump still dominates conversation."

In any case, let's see if the polling trends I mentioned yesterday hold firm. See, "No 2012 Frontrunner Polling Collapse Problem for Donald Trump."

Fiorina's been in single digits so long I'm skeptical that her moment on the big stage, no matter how impressive it was, will launch her up into Trump's territory. If anything, Ben Carson will fade a little bit, with Fiorina picking up some of his supporters. But well see. We'll see.

BONUS: Still more at the New York Times, "Candidates Use Second GOP Debate to Taunt Donald Trump."

Poll: Sixty-Eight Percent of California Democrats Want Free Healthcare for Illegal Alien Criminals!

Well, here's some fodder for tonight's debate, from the home state electorate.

Migrant crisis? What migrant crisis? Democrats will take in everybody and give them luxury Cadillac health benefits on the public's dime. Must be nice to live in the left's Utopian never-never land, heh.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California voters sharply disagree on low-cost healthcare for immigrants":

California has adopted a series of laws in recent years to help people in the country illegally, and polls show broad support for a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 2 million such immigrants living in the state.

But it's a different story when it comes to providing them healthcare benefits.

California voters are sharply divided over whether free or low-cost health insurance should be granted to those who reside in the state without legal status, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.

The poll found that about 48% of voters believed that immigrants who live here illegally should be eligible to receive free or low-cost health insurance through Medi-Cal or a similar program. A statistically equal 47% said the group should not be eligible, while about 6% said they didn't know or refused to answer the question.

Backing for the benefit is split along ethnic lines, with 69% of Latino voters but only 39% of white voters responding that the group should be eligible. And it had an ideological cast as well: 68% of Democrats supported eligibility, yet only 19% of Republicans agreed.

Opposition was most passionate among supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, 90% of whom opposed eligibility. Opposition among backers of other candidates ranked substantially lower.

Support has been growing for years among Californians for new immigration policies that would offer a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally. But Californians have remained somewhat conflicted, as the poll underscored, when it comes to offering costly services to those immigrants before they attain legal status.

Immigrant rights activists have pushed a proposal to provide state-funded healthcare for people who reside in California without legal status. They came close to succeeding this summer, but lawmakers scaled back the proposal after cost estimates ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Instead, legislators set aside $40 million in the most recent state budget to provide Medi-Cal coverage to children younger than 19 years old, regardless of legal status.

The responses might have been different if the question had focused on only children who are in the country illegally, said Drew Lieberman of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a Democratic firm that conducted the poll with the Republican firm American Viewpoint...

Hey Dems, it's the land of milk and honey!

Free healthcare for the entire world! Come on people now, just flood our freakin' borders!

More.

Republican Candidates Must Win Support of Disaffected Americans

At WSJ, "GOP Candidates Must Win Over Dissatisfied Voters":

SIMI VALLEY, Calif.—Whether or not Donald Trump remains the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, his supporters will be a potent political force that other candidates must confront.

The billionaire real-estate developer’s unexpected rise—and surprisingly durable popularity—is pointing to a surly mood among GOP voters that is not going away soon.

Mr. Trump’s detractors have spent weeks trying to devise the best line of attack to dethrone him. Now, some of his rivals are turning their attention to addressing the voters whose anger, frustration and mistrust of politicians seems to have elevated him to the top.

Jeb Bush recently described himself, as governor of Florida a decade ago, as a “disrupter” who upended the status quo in Tallahassee. Sen. Marco Rubio, reaching for ordinary-guy authenticity, is airing ads with “unedited” footage of him driving around Miami. Sen. Ted Cruz amplified his own anti-establishment message by inviting Mr. Trump to join him at a protest rally on the Capitol lawn.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a time when Washington has been more out of touch with the lives of everyday people than it is right now,” Mr. Rubio said in Iowa last weekend. “Both parties quite frankly are to blame. People want leaders who know what life is like in the real world.”

Wednesday night’s televised CNN debate will give GOP candidates another chance to attack Mr. Trump, empathize with his supporters, or both. Their calculations could carry big consequences down the road: If the party’s nominee moves too far to the right on issues such as immigration or bashes Washington with too much gusto, the GOP could lose general-election support from minorities and swing voters who are less hostile to government.

In the six weeks since the first GOP primary debate, there has been growing evidence of deep voter disaffection with Washington and the political establishment. In the shifting polls since then, candidates with the most experience have tended to lose ground while the least experienced candidates have surged.

According to polling averages compiled by Real Clear Politics, the candidates drawing more support are Messrs. Trump and Cruz, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina. Those who have lost ground include Messrs. Bush, Paul, and Rubio, as well as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
“I like that Trump is throwing things out there,” said Gaige Gill, a social studies teacher in Mapleton, Iowa, as he waited to catch a glimpse of the real estate mogul at a tailgate party at Iowa State University last weekend. “I don’t know if that makes him a good president.”

The stiffest challenge to Mr. Trump’s dominance now is from Mr. Carson, another political amateur. In the latest New York Times/CBS poll, Republicans who favored those two candidates alone accounted for half of those surveyed...

No 2012 Frontrunner Polling Collapse Problem for Donald Trump

Well, this explains it.

At WSJ, "Donald Trump’s Enduring Lead Shows 2016 Not a 2012 Replay":

Ever since Donald Trump gained altitude as a presidential candidate, experienced political hands have predicted that his balloon would soon pop.

As evidence, they cite the 2012 primary. Republicans flirted with a rotating cast of candidates from outside the political mainstream before settling on Mitt Romney, a member of the party’s establishment wing.

But polling now says that a different story is unfolding this time around.

The Republican electorate seems much more unsettled than in 2012, suggesting a more difficult path for this cycle’s set of establishment candidates. Three polling measures show how different the 2016 cycle is from 2012.

To being with, Donald Trump has spent more days leading the Republican presidential field than did any of Romney’s challengers in 2012.

That’s one sign of how strong the hunger is among Republicans this year for a nontraditional candidate. Here’s another: Neither the first- nor the second-place spot in national polls is held by an establishment candidate.

he top two slots belong to Mr. Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Jeb Bush is a fairly distant third in the Real Clear Politics average of polls.

In 2012, Mr. Romney faced repeated challenges from competitors, but throughout the campaign he was never lower than second in the RCP average. There was a distinct pattern to the 2012 numbers, with Mr. Romney in either first place or in second, with a new competitor rising or falling around him. That dynamic so far isn’t being repeated this year.

A third trend that marks 2016 as different from the last campaign: Establishment candidates have fallen to single-digit support in national polls...

Still more. And click through for the graphics.

Donald Trump Speaks at USS Iowa (VIDEO)

Full coverage at the Los Angeles Times, "Trump zeroes in on immigration in national security speech aboard battleship."

And watch, at Fox News 10 Phoenix, "Donald Trump speaks on the USS Iowa."

Donald Trump in 1989: 'Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!'

Via Ann Coulter, who just loves her some Donald Trump.

And see Dana Pico, "#DonaldTrump and the White Working Class Voter."

Read this DJT full-page ad from 1989 and tell me @realDonaldTrump is a Johnny-Come-Lately "fake" conservative: pic.twitter.com/WF9ruXQkAS

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 14, 2015

Hillary Clinton's Obsessively Stage-Managed Campaign Events (VIDEO)

Shoot, it's not even a campaign. It's a holding pattern.

Watch, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, "Halperin, Heilemann Poke Fun at Clinton's Obsessively Stage Managed Events."

They're the authors of Double Down: Game Change 2012.

Donald Trump Supporters Line-Up 10 Hours for Dallas Campaign Event (VIDEO)

Gary Tuchman interviews Trump supporters who lined up for 10 hours in Dallas, at CNN, "Why are people waiting 10 hours to see and hear Trump?"

At at Fox News 10 Phoenix, "Donald Trump Dallas Rally FULL Speech."

And at Fox New 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, "Trump rally expected to draw huge crowds," and "Crowds arrive at AAC for Trump rally."

Wall Street's Latest Panic: Trump Could Win

Of course he could win, heh.

Interesting though that Wall Streeters would be panicking at a Trump win. For all his bluster, he's much more likely to be a friend of markets than the Democrats, especially Bernie Sanders, with all his diatribes against "billionaires."

At Politico, "With Bush and Clinton taking their lumps, financial executives face populist critics in both parties":

NEW YORK — Wall Street is growing increasingly terrified that Donald Trump — once viewed as an amusing summertime distraction — could actually win the Republican nomination for president.

The real estate billionaire, who took another populist shot on Sunday by ripping into lavish executive pay, continues to rise in the polls. Would-be Wall Street saviors like Jeb Bush are languishing in single digits. The belief that Trump's candidacy would quickly fade is now evaporating in a wave of fear.

“I held four lunches for investors in August and at the first one everyone assumed Trump would implode,” said Byron Wien, vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Partners and a senior figure on Wall Street. “By the fourth one everyone was taking him very seriously. He taps into frustrations that are very real and he is a master manipulator of the media.”

The CEO of one large Wall Street firm, who declined to be identified by name criticizing the GOP front-runner, said the assumption in the financial industry remains that something will eventually knock Trump off and send voters toward a more establishment candidate. But that assumption is no longer held with strong conviction. And a dozen Wall Street executives interviewed for this article could not say what might dent Trump's appeal or when it might happen.

"I don't know anyone who is a Donald Trump supporter. I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who is a Donald Trump supporter. They are like this huge mystery group,” the CEO said. "So it's a combination of shock and bewilderment. No one really knows why this is happening. But my own belief is that the laws of gravity will apply and those who are prepared to run the marathon will benefit when Trump drops out at mile 22. Right now people think Trump is pretty hilarious but the longer it goes on the more frightening it gets."

Well, as they say, don't hold your breath.

Keep reading (via Memeorandum).

Blue-Collar Support, Not Ideology, Underlies Donald Trump's Spectacular Rise

The Democrats have been bleeding blue-collar support, and dangerously so. And thus Donald Trump's huge backing among that demographic's gotta be a major fear for the post-Obama Dems heading into 2016.

From Ronald Brownstein, at National Journal, "The Billionaire Candidate and His Blue-Collar Following."

There's no sweet pullout quotes at the piece.

Just read it all at that link.

One point, though, is important: Brownstein notes that it's not likely that Trump's support will fade any time soon, and thus his challengers in the Republican field are going to have to find a way to "eclipse" him. But as long as Trump sticks with the issues that have driven his surge thus far, it's not likely that we'll be seeing a political eclipse in the short term. As noted above, however, the longer term fear's going to be with the Democrats. If Trump wins the nomination he's got the potential to strip white working class voters from the Democrat coalition once and for all. And that could be murderous to the left's electoral hopes, since much of the Democrats' so-called "coalition of the ascendant" just doesn't vote in numbers anywhere near those of traditional white constituencies.

But we'll see. We'll see.

San Pedro Residents Protest Donald Trump Visit to Battleship Iowa

Sounds like Trump's still working on Latino engagement in the Los Angeles harbor area.

At the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "San Pedro not happy about Donald Trump’s event at Battleship Iowa":

San Pedro is not reacting kindly to Donald Trump’s scheduled national security speech at the Battleship Iowa next week.

In fact, some serious name-calling has erupted in an online petition, signed by nearly 3,000 people, that encourages cancellation of the celebrity presidential candidate’s visit.

“Donald Trump is an arrogant, racist, misogynist buffoon,” said one resident who signed an online petition titled “Tell the USS Iowa: We Don’t Want Trump in San Pedro, CA.”

Other petitioners were just as blunt in their rhetoric about the celebrity presidential candidate’s Tuesday appearance, sponsored by a veterans group.

• “We do not need discrimination of any type, San Pedro is a humble town and does not need Trump to come and mix waters.”

• “San Pedro is a melting pot of different cultures — Donald Trump has already made his intolerance clear; he has no place in our community.”

• “He’s a buffoon. He’s a racist. It is a city built on blue-collar labor. Does Trump know what that is? And much of that labor comes from immigrants. They are welcome here in Pedro. You, Trump, are not.”

Gabriela Lopez of San Pedro, a 25-year-old aspiring physician, started the petition that asks Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino to send Trump packing before he arrives in the port union stronghold.

“It was shocking to me that he would be speaking (at) the battleship,” Lopez said.

The ship, she said, should be neutral political territory.

And it is, said Jonathan Williams, CEO and president of the Battleship Iowa, the floating museum that has been in San Pedro since 2012.

“As a 501(c)(3), we are nonpolitical and apolitical. We can’t endorse or promote any political candidate,” Williams said. “We provide a community platform to all groups and organizations, regardless of political affiliation.”

More at that top link.

Vanessa Ruiz, Anchor for NBC 12 News in Phoenix, Defends Spanish Pronunciation of Words (VIDEO)

Heh, you gotta love this.

And she handles it beautifully. Watch: "News Anchor Shuts Down Haters Giving Her Sh*t For Her Spanish Accent."

And at the New York Times (where else?), "Arizona News Anchor Is Drawn Into Debate on Her Accent and the Use of Spanish":

PHOENIX — An Arizona news anchor defended her pronunciation of Spanish words during English broadcasts, saying she delivers them the way the language is intended to be spoken.

In a broadcast on Monday, Vanessa Ruiz, who works for 12 News here, waded into the running debate over the use of Spanish that has divided Americans in different ways for years, and has been percolating on the campaign trail.

Ms. Ruiz, who was raised in a bilingual household, said some viewers had questioned her way of pronouncing Spanish words. Sandra Kotzambasis, the station’s news director, said viewers were asking why Ms. Ruiz “rolled her Rs.”

In the broadcast, Ms. Ruiz said, “Some of you have noticed that I pronounce a couple of things maybe a little bit differently than what you are used to, and I get that, and maybe even tonight you saw a little bit of it.

“I was lucky enough to grow up speaking two languages, and I have lived in other cities, in the U.S., South America, and Europe,” she continued. “So yes, I do like to pronounce certain things the way they are meant to be pronounced. And I know that change can be difficult, but it’s normal and over time I know that everything falls into place.”

The use of Spanish in the United States has been contested in a range of ways over the years, from objections to its use in the Pledge of Allegiance; to casual conversation on school buses, such as in Nevada; and in a New Mexico supermarket accused of having singled out Spanish-speaking employees with an “English-only” policy, according to some of the cases pursued by the American Civil Liberties Union.

It has most recently reached into the political stage among rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, such as when Donald J. Trump said this week that Jeb Bush should “really set the example by speaking English while in the United States.”

The United States has more than 55 million Hispanics and, according to the 2011 American Community Survey, 38 million residents age 5 and older who speak Spanish at home. But questions about the use of Spanish persist.

In Arizona, where the Hispanic population is at 30 percent and is growing, the conversation about language has included questions over the English fluency of candidates for public office. It has surfaced regularly in schools, notably in a state law banning, with some exceptions, b ilingual education.

In July, an appeals court agreed to give challengers a chance to void a state law designed to end an ethnic studies program in Tucson’s school district, where 60 percent of the children enrolled were of Mexican or other Hispanic descent. A former state school superintendent championed the law, taking particular issue at a popular district’s Mexican-American studies program.

Timothy M. Hogan, the executive director of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, has worked on some state laws involving the use of Spanish in public schools. “My observation is people generally feel threatened by use of communication that they are unfamiliar with,” he said. “Underlying all of that is the implied threat to the vanishing majority.”

Ms. Ruiz was born in Miami, grew up in Colombia, and studied in Spain before a career in journalism that has taken her on international assignments. She joined 12 News in July.

She followed her comments on air with a statement posted on the station’s website: “Let me be clear: My intention has never been to be disrespectful or dismissive, quite the contrary. I actually feel I am paying respect to the way some of Arizona’s first, original settlers intended for some things to be said.”

Still more.

Marco Rubio: My Vision for U.S. Foreign Policy

So, the Florida senator has a piece up at Foreign Affairs, "Restoring America’s Strength":

America’s status as the greatest and most influential nation on earth comes with certain inescapable realities. Among these are an abundance of enemies wishing to undermine us, numerous allies dependent on our strength and constancy, and the burden of knowing that every choice we make in exercising our power—even when we choose not to exercise it at all—has tremendous human and geopolitical consequences.

This has been true for at least 70 years, but never more so than today. As the world has grown more interconnected, American leadership has grown more critical to maintaining global order and defending our people’s interests, and as our economy has turned from national to international, domestic policy and foreign policy have become inseparable.

President Barack Obama has failed to recognize this. He entered office believing the United States was too engaged in too many places and that globalization had diminished the need for American power. He set to work peeling back the protective cover of American influence, stranding our allies, and deferring to the whims of nefarious regional powers. He has vacillated between leading recklessly and not leading at all, which has left the world more dangerous and America’s interests less secure.
It will take years for our next president to confront the residual effects of President Obama’s foreign and defense policies. Countering the spread of the self-declared Islamic State, for example, will require a broadened coalition of regional partners, increased U.S. involvement in the fight, and steady action to prevent the group’s expansion to other failed and failing states. Halting Iran’s regional expansionism and preventing its acquisition of a nuclear weapon will demand equal urgency and care.

The Middle East, however, is far from the only region with crises. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Beijing’s attempts to dominate the South China Sea, resurgent despotism in South America, and the rise of new threats—from devastating cyberattacks to challenges in space — will all require the careful attention of America’s next president.

Each challenge will be made more difficult by President Obama’s slashing of hundreds of billions of dollars from the defense budget, which has left the U.S. Army on track to be at pre–World War II levels, the U.S. Navy at pre–World War I levels, and the U.S. Air Force with the smallest and oldest combat force in its history. Our next president must act immediately on entering office to begin rebuilding these capabilities.

The first and most important pillar of my foreign policy will be a renewal of American strength. This is an idea based on a simple truth: the world is at its safest when America is at its strongest. Physical strength and an active foreign policy to back it up are a means of preserving peace, not promoting conflict. Foreign involvement has never been a binary choice between perpetual war and passive indifference. The president has many tools to advance U.S. interests, and when used in proper balance, they will make it less likely that force will ever be required and will thus save lives rather than cost them.

My foreign policy would restore the post-1945 bipartisan presidential tradition of a strong and engaged America while adjusting it to meet the new realities of a globalized world. The foreign policy I propose has three pillars. Each can be best described through an example of a challenge we face in this new century, but they all reveal the need for all elements of American power—for a dynamic foreign policy that restores strength, promotes prosperity, and steers the world toward freedom.

I like it. I just wonder how Rubio's going to differentiate himself from the rest of the pack. With the exception of Rand Paul, pretty much all the GOP candidates will be hammering Obama's withdrawal from the world stage, and his appeasement of America's traditional adversaries.

Keep reading.

Progressive Policies Drive More Californians Into Poverty, Especially Blacks and Hispanics

California's a far-left Democrat Party state, and apparently the disenfranchised poor are down with that.

Keep in mind who's really doing well amid that the state's economic recovery: the Silicon Valley types (in West L.A., the O.C., and San Diego too), and the Burbank-Hollywood entertainment industry, i.e., affluent leftists not dependent on welfare state transfer programs.

From Joel Kotkin, at the O.C. Register, "Progressive policies drive more into poverty":

Across the nation, progressives increasingly look at California as a model state. This tendency has increased as climate change has emerged as the Democratic Party’s driving issue. To them, California’s recovery from a very tough recession is proof positive that you can impose ever greater regulation on everything from housing to electricity and still have a thriving economy.

And to be sure, the state has finally recovered the jobs lost in the 2007-09 recession, largely a result of a boom in values of stocks and high- end real estate. Things, however, have not been so rosy in key blue-collar fields, such as construction, which is still more than 200,000 jobs below prerecession levels, or manufacturing, where the state has lost over one-third of its employment since 2000. Homelessness, which one would think should be in decline during a strong economy, is on the rise in Orange County and even more so in Los Angeles.

The dirty secret here is that a large proportion of Californians, roughly one-third, or some 3.2 million households, as found by a recent United Way study, find it increasingly difficult to keep their heads above water. The United Way study, surprisingly, has drawn relatively little interest from a media that usually enjoys highlighting disparities, particularly racial gaps. Perhaps this reflects a need to maintain an illusion of blue state success. If Republican Pete Wilson were still governor, I suspect we might have heard much more about this study.

State of Poverty

The United Way study – “Struggling to Get By” – delves well beyond even the recent Census Bureau analysis, which, by factoring in housing costs, already established California as the state with the highest percentage of poor people, at roughly one in four. United Way expanded this percentage by calculating what the charitable organization called the “Real Cost Budget,” which includes not only rent but also costs for child care, medical, health and transportation.

By United Way’s calculation, roughly one in three Californians can barely make ends meet, despite the state’s relatively generous transfer payments, subsidies and general assistance. Latinos and African Americans, as one might expect, fare worse, but roughly one-in-five non-Hispanic whites and 28 percent of Asians also are deemed struggling.

Roughly half of Latino households fall into this condition of poverty or near-poverty, as do a similar share of African American households. Those who do worst generally are poorly educated single mothers and their children. Poverty and near-poverty are greatest among Latinos, who also are bearing the majority of children. It is hard to imagine a more urgent wake-up call.

Not surprisingly, many of the foreign-born, the source of much of California’s population growth in recent decades, have fared poorly. Only 25 percent of households headed by native-born Californians fall below the United Way “Real Cost Budget” line for economic distress, but it’s 45 percent for those headed by the foreign-born, and nearly 60 percent for families headed by a noncitizen. The highest percentage is among Latino households headed by a noncitizen – a staggering 80 percent fall below the minimal level...

Keep reading.

Interesting thing about Kotkin is that he's a former leftist, or so they say.

Hat Tip: VDare, "The Collapse of California."

California's Latino Plurality Points Toward Change to Come

Latinos have overtaken whites in California's population demographics, although I don't think it's as breathtaking as folks might think. Parts of California have been most Mexican for decades, and it's not good. It's just now that official statistics are catching up.

At the Los Angeles Times, "As Latino population surges, gaps in income and education may shrink":

Yolanda Garcia's grandparents migrated from Mexico and worked multiple jobs — in farm fields and school cafeterias — to save money to send all six children to college.

Garcia's father attended Brown University and had five children. In turn, she graduated from UC Santa Cruz, worked as a teacher and now runs a gallery and boutique store in Whittier selling Latin American folklore art and other items.

Along the way, the family moved up the ladder, from South Los Angeles to the upscale Friendly Hills neighborhood of Whittier. They were the first Latinos in their immediate area. Now, there are four other Latino families there.

The Garcias' story represents a common California immigrant dream. But it's far from the reality for all Latinos, who the U.S. Census Bureau now says have surpassed non-Latino whites to become California's largest ethnic group.

The milestone is a reminder of the huge strides Latinos have made, but also of the challenges they still face.

Overall, Latinos have lower incomes, education and job skills than the average white Californian.

The Latino plurality is just a preview of the demographic shifts ahead. Latinos make up half of all Californians younger than 18, numbering 4.7 million compared with 2.4 million whites, according to census data.

This younger generation has a chance to close many of these gaps, with many achieving more than their parents.

A study published last year found that second-generation Mexican Americans in California and Texas had achieved more education, higher earnings, less poverty, more white-collar jobs and greater rates of home ownership than their immigrant parents. Only about 21% of Mexican parents had completed high school, for instance, compared with 80% of their children by 2005.

"It's extraordinary the progress that Latino youth have made relative to their parents, but they are still lagging behind," said USC professor Dowell Myers, one of the report's authors. "We need to recognize how important these people are and how urgent their success is for the well-being of everyone."

Marilyn Padilla represents the hope in this next generation.

She is the child of a Honduran immigrant mother who worked as a cocktail waitress and never attended school. Her father was deported before she was born. But Padilla stayed out of trouble growing up in Boyle Heights and is now studying linguistics at UC Santa Cruz, with ambitions to become a Spanish teacher.

"We have come a long way," she said. "We are starting to put down the stereotypes about us. Now we are becoming equals, we are doing that for ourselves."

The Latino population surge is leading the way in what demographers call a "grand experiment" in making California the most dynamically diverse state in the nation's history...

Keep reading.

Be Afraid of Marco Rubio, Democrats. Be Very Afraid

I love this.

As I've said before, Marco Rubio's a formidable candidate who could siphon Hispanics from the Democrat coalition. And now it turns out that the prospect has depraved Democrats shitting bricks.

At the New York Times, "Prospect of Hillary Clinton-Marco Rubio Matchup Unnerves Democrats" (via Memeorandum):

WASHINGTON — They use words like “historic” and “charismatic,” phrases like “great potential” and “million-dollar smile.” They notice audience members moved to tears by an American-dream-come-true success story. When they look at the cold, hard political math, they get uneasy.

An incipient sense of anxiety is tugging at some Democrats — a feeling tersely captured in four words from a blog post written recently by a seasoned party strategist in Florida: “Marco Rubio scares me.”

What is so unnerving to them at this early phase of the 2016 presidential campaign still seems, at worst, a distant danger: the prospect of a head-to-head general-election contest between Mr. Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Yet the worriers include some on Mrs. Clinton’s team. And even former President Bill Clinton is said to worry that Mr. Rubio could become the Republican nominee, whittle away at Mrs. Clinton’s support from Hispanics and jeopardize her chances of carrying Florida’s vital 29 electoral votes.

Democrats express concerns not only about whether Mr. Rubio, 43, a son of Cuban immigrants, will win over Hispanic voters, a growing and increasingly important slice of the electorate. They also worry that he would offer a sharp generational contrast to Mrs. Clinton, a fixture in American politics for nearly a quarter-century who will turn 69 before the election.

As her supporters recall, Barack Obama beat Mrs. Clinton for the nomination in the 2008 elections after drawing similar contrasts himself.

Patti Solis Doyle, who ran Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign for most of the 2008 contest, said Mr. Rubio “could have the ability to nip away at the numbers for the Democrats.”

Ms. Doyle, the first Hispanic woman to manage a presidential campaign, added that Mr. Rubio could allow Republicans to regain a “reasonable percentage” of the Hispanic vote. In 2012, just 27 percent of Hispanics voted for the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney.

Mr. Rubio “is a powerful speaker,” Ms. Doyle added. “He is young. He is very motivational. He has a powerful story.”

Recognizing how essential it is to win Hispanic support, Mrs. Clinton has gone further in laying out an immigration policy than she has on almost any other issue, saying that she would extend greater protections to halt deportations of people in the United States illegally. She has also hired a former undocumented immigrant to lead her Latino outreach efforts.

Her own strategists, their allies in the “super PACs” working on her behalf and the Democratic Party all say they see plenty of vulnerabilities in Mr. Rubio’s record and his views. And they are trying to shape the perception people have of him while polls show that he is still relatively unknown: Yes, the Democratic National Committee said in a recent memo, Mr. Rubio was a fresh face, but one “peddling a tired playbook of policies that endanger our country, hurt the middle class, and stifle the American dream.”

So far, Democrats who have combed over Mr. Rubio’s voting record in the Senate have seized on his opposition to legislation raising the minimum wage and to expanding college loan refinancing, trying to cast him as no different from other Republicans.

The subtext: He may be Hispanic, but he is not on the side of Hispanics when it comes to the issues they care about.

Democrats will try to use Mr. Rubio’s youth and four-year career in national politics against him, depicting him as green or naïve — a liability at a time when unrest abroad is a top concern. “A Dan Quayle without the experience,” suggested Christopher Lehane, a veteran strategist who has worked for the Clintons.

Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico, who is of Mexican heritage, said Democrats would also make an issue of Mr. Rubio’s mixed record on how to overhaul the immigration system: He initially supported a Senate bill to grant people in the United States illegally a path to citizenship, but he later backed down.

Mr. Richardson said that would poison his chances with Hispanic voters. “His own Hispanic potential would defeat him,” he said.

Well, if anyone knows how to "poison" a presidential race it's Bill Richardson.

More at Power Line, "DEMOCRATS SAY: WE FEAR MARCO!"

Photo Credit: Wikipedia.

Rush Limbaugh Really, Really Likes Marco Rubio

Well, I'm glad.

I have a sense Rubio might catch on with the general electorate --- and here's to hoping he gives the big GOP frontrunners a run for their money.

From Aaron Blake, at the Washington Post:

On his radio show Tuesday, Rush Limbaugh devoted plenty of time to praising Rubio in what can only be described as glowing terms. Yes, he said he wasn't happy about the "amnesty" thing, but he also seems to have pretty quickly moved past it. He even volunteered some excuses for Rubio.

More.

California Latinos Lag 'Far Behind' in College Achievement

Over half the students at my college are Hispanic, so you can get a sense of the challenges we're dealing with.

At the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "Latinos in California lag ‘far behind’ in college enrollment, graduation rates":

While nearly 60 percent of Latinos in the state between the ages of 25 and 64 are foreign born, even those who are native born were much less likely than the state average — 18 percent vs. 31 percent — to have at least a bachelor’s degree, the report found.

In addition, only 29 percent of 12th-grade Latino graduates completed all of their coursework to make them eligible for UC or Cal State entrance, compared with 47 percent of white students and 65 percent of Asian students, according to the report.

The obstacles Latinos face are many. A good number are low-income, they are often the first generation in their family to go to college and many attend low-performing schools that do not adequately prepare them for college, [Michele] Siqueiros [president of the Campaign for College Opportunity] said. They are grappling with these challenges as students today share a greater burden in funding their education than before in light of a decline in state contributions...

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University of Oklahoma Expels Students for Constitutionally Protected Speech

Yep.

The First Amendment protect your racist views.

At Instapundit, "F.I.R.E.: University of Oklahoma Expels Students for Constitutionally Protected Speech. 'The university’s actions also present serious due process concerns'."

And hey, it's microaggressions all the way on the University of Oklahoma. See LAT, "University of Oklahoma minorities say 'casual racism' permeates their lives":

Every black person on campus knows another black student who left because of that isolation and the casual racism that grows in its place.

"People ask you, 'Can you teach me to twerk?'" Kadira said.

Mirelsie Velazquez, a Latina professor in the university's College of Education, came to Norman in August. She said she's often the only person of color in classes or walking around town.

With the release of the video, Velazquez said she's able to put faces and voices to the feeling she gets as a person of color standing in front of a room of white faces.

"As we stand there teaching, not just at Oklahoma, and then you think about how these students behave in private time, you wonder how do they view me and my community?" Velazquez said.

"It's hard to enter spaces and now be constantly thinking about how you're thought of."

It's hard out there!