Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" Favorite Latino Moment

As many of you know Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" is coming close to its last show. I had to honor is funny banter and comic relief of American politics. Here is one of my favorite show segments that is a MUST WATCH!


CLICK HERE: Jon Stewart on Immigration and Old Fashion Racism

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(New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie talks to the media as he visits Jose Marti Freshman Academy in Union City, N.J. Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013, the day after defeating Democratic challenger Barbara Buono to win his second term as governor. (AP Photo/Rich Schultz))

Analysis: Christie win with Latinos will be tougher nationally

by Suzanne Gamboa, @SuzGamboa 

Gov. Chris Christie pulled off in New Jersey what Mitt Romney failed to do nationally – attract lots of Latino voters. Now, can he or any other GOP presidential hopeful do the same nationally in 2016?

Christie’s capture of 51 percent of the Latino vote helped return him for a second term as governor. Just as important, it’s given Republicans a shining example showing other GOPers they can rebound from Romney’s 27 percent showing with Latinos in 2012.

“The results show we can win the Latino vote,” said Izzy Santa, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, which assisted Christie’s campaign. “Our work isn’t done there. We are going to evaluate where we need to be to keep growing the electorate.”

Getting that large share of the Latino vote was done by treating Latinos like everybody else and getting in the trenches long before election time, Christie said in a post-election news conference.

RELATED: In Chris Christie’s re-election, Republicans see blueprint for Latino support 

“The problem politicians make is they look at a specific community and say what can I say to appeal to them? That’s not my approach. Latino folks want the same thing that everyone else wants,”  Christie said.
Mike Duhaime, Christie’s top political strategist, voiced what is likely to become mantra for Republicans who have been steadily losing Latinos amid anti-immigrant and anti-Latino rhetoric.

“There’s no chance to win a blue state if you don’t go out and win over Hispanics, win over a larger portion of  African Americans, win a large chunk of Democrats,” Duhaime told Chuck Todd on Wednesday’s morning’s “The Daily Rundown.”

But New Jersey’s Latino population is not a mirror of the Hispanic population at large. What plays in Jersey, may not play in New Mexico, even if that state’s governor was at Christie’s side on the final day of his campaign.

The state’s largest Latino group is Puerto Rican, about 30 percent of the Latino population, according to Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project. Among eligible Latino voters, four-in-ten are Puerto Rican, 13 percent are of Dominican origin, about 9 percent are of Cuban descent and five percent are of Mexican origin. Another 31 percent are of other Hispanic origin.

Nationally, 59 percent of eligible Latino voters are of Mexican origin, 14 percent are Puerto Rican, 5 percent are Cuban, 3 percent are Dominican and 16 percent are of other Hispanic origin, according to Pew.
There are many issues that resonate throughout the Latino community, but not all have the same ranking of importance when it comes time to vote.

“There’s plenty of research that shows Puerto Rican Hispanics are much less supportive of liberalized immigration reform. It’s not an issue that affects them in the same personal way as Mexican-origin Hispanics,” said Ali Adam Valenzuela, a political scientist at Princeton University.

In addition, Election Day exit polling was done only in English, meaning Hispanics who were reached were likely to be more “assimilated,” educated and higher income, Valenzuela said.

Those differences are likely to make courting a national Latino population more complex for Christie in a 2016 presidential run as well as for any other candidates. There is little expectation that a candidate could get 51 percent, but winning nationally generally means getting at least 35 percent of the Latino vote.

What Christie did right was to stay away from the extreme policy positions and rhetoric of other Republicans. He didn’t repeat the mistakes Romney made of calling for “self-deportation” of people illegally in the country.

Immigration had the potential to become a thorn in Christie’s humming-along campaign, when young immigrants began pressing him about in-state tuition for DREAMers – the young immigrants brought by their parents to the U.S. illegally.

Christie had opposed in-state tuition for DREAMers but changed his view, diffusing the issue that could have ripped into the Latino support he had been building.

“He literally embraced diversity, when he talked about all the different people he had hugged in the campaign. That was meant to speak to the potential non-white Republican voter,” Latino Decisions political scientist Sylvia Manzano said.

The issue was front and center for Republican Ken Cuccinelli, who lost his gubernatorial bid to Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia Tuesday night. Though Cucinelli dialed-down some of his rhetoric on immigration, he was unable to walk away from previous positions and actions on the issue.

“It is telling that (Christie) won and Cucinelli lost and you know, the party needs to understand whether those are two isolated events or if there is a connection because there were two very different Republican messages, I believe,” said Carlos Gutierrez, former Secretary of Commerce under President George W. Bush who has worked with the GOP to attract the Latino vote.

Overall, Christie was a well-liked and formidable candidate who related to Latinos, Gutierrez said. “As many people say,” Gutierrez said, “the candidate makes the difference.”

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Gov. Jerry Brown could learn a lesson from 'Lincoln'

The film shows that messy deal-making is often needed to solve complex and divisive problems. And California has a raft of them. 

Abraham Lincoln (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) walks through the corridors  of the White House in this scene from director Steven Spielberg's movie "Lincoln." (DreamWorks)

 

 By George Skelton - Capitol Journal

 SACRAMENTO — The movie "Lincoln" should be required viewing for all elected chief executives from president to mayor, and especially for California's governor.

Especially our governor because California has so many perplexing, polarizing problems that urgently need fixing: an outdated, inefficient tax system; a business regulatory sump; deteriorating public schools and universities; and a crumbling infrastructure, including state waterworks.

For starters "Lincoln," directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president, shows how great public deeds can be achieved in the real world of American democracy.

In fact, make "Lincoln" required viewing for all legislators, from Congress to state capitals to city councils.

Moreover, every voter should see it — at least those idealists who cling to the misguided notion that politicians must be pure and not truly representative of the people who elect them; that they should be angelic, not human.

Politicians — even the most dedicated and well-intentioned — are torn by conflicting cross-currents of human nature. It's rare that anything momentous is achieved by an easily cobbled consensus. There are always potential winners and losers at one another's throats.

Sometimes an inducement needs to be dangled to persuade a hesitant — often scared — lawmaker to cast a difficult vote. OK, call it a payoff.

"Lincoln" is about the Great Emancipator's tenacious fight to prod Congress into passing the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery before the Civil War ends. After peace arrives, the pressure will be off, he fears. His Emancipation Proclamation had covered only rebel states and might not even hold up constitutionally after the war.

Lincoln is short 20 Democratic votes in a lame-duck session of the House of Representatives. Advisors say it's too risky to push ahead, that it could cost him his popularity.

"We can find 20 votes," the president says confidently, and notes that dozens of Democrats lost their seats in the recent election. They'll be "Democrats looking for jobs" when the current session ends, he notes. Offer them.

Finally, Lincoln gets within two votes, but his aides and hired lobbyists are losing hope. The impatient president is sitting with them and slaps the table. "I can't listen to this anymore," he yells. He wants those votes this week. "Now get the hell out of here and get 'em." Asked how, he stands, stretching his 6-foot, 4-inch frame, and lectures them about presidential politics.

Here, I'll quote from Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Lincoln." The movie was based, in part, on the book, and uses this quote from Lincoln exhorting his naysaying help:
"I am President of the United States, clothed with great power. The abolition of slavery by constitutional provision settles the fate, for all coming time, not only of the millions now in bondage, but of unborn millions to come — a measure of such importance that those two votes must be procured.

"I leave it to you to determine how it shall be done. But remember that I am President of the United States, clothed in immense power, and I expect you to procure those votes."

Goodwin continues: "It was clear to his emissaries that his powers extended to plum assignments, pardons, campaign contributions and government jobs for relatives and friends of faithful members."

One Democrat changed his vote, Goodwin writes, and later "was given the lucrative post of Navy agent in New York."

In the movie, a couple regains ownership of a toll road, which had been confiscated by a Union commander, after they persuade their congressman to vote for the amendment.

A Democratic congressman is told he'll lose his seat unless he supports the amendment. He votes yes.
Satchels of greenbacks are passed to persuadable congressmen.
It's "shady work," notes Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn).
 

After the amendment passes, abolitionist Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) remarks that the measure succeeds because of "corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America."

Much of what Lincoln and his lieutenants pulled may be illegal today in California.
Hinting, winking, speaking in code are all legal. Offering a quid pro quo — something of value for a vote — is not. That's bribery.

 

In the 1980s, the FBI conducted a Sacramento sting that led to 14 convictions involving political payoffs. Five of those nabbed were lawmakers.

 

"In this day and age, you have to be careful," says political attorney Steve Merksamer, chief of staff to former Gov. George Deukmejian. "That's not to say that governors, when in the process of building Cabinets or making other appointments, don't have feelings and don't remember who were nasty to them — as well as people who have been responsive to their leadership.

"That's just human nature."
Same thing with bill signings and vetoes. Reward friends and punish enemies.
Gov. Jerry Brown's father, legendary Gov. Pat Brown, was a master of deal-making. It's how he got the state water project built.

Key jobs and judgeships were paid out. Some small recreational lakes were built to satisfy one influential assemblywoman.

Jerry Brown has been much less of a deal maker, perhaps still rebelling against his dad's old-fashioned politics.

Last year, Brown failed to cut a deal with Republicans to place a proposed tax extension on the ballot. Each side blamed the other. The end result was that the governor hit up special interests for millions of dollars to collect voter signatures for the tax increase Californians ultimately passed.

Brown did see the movie, calling it "extraordinary." He was particularly impressed with Lincoln's "preternatural skill" in working the congressmen. Let's hope the governor picked up a few pointers.

george.skelton@latimes.com