Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Latest Pew Research Center poll: Romney’s immigration stance may soften to appeal to Latino voters
Mitt Romney may adopt a softer tone on illegal immigration now that the long and divisive primary is all but over and he gears up for a head-to-head battle with President Barack Obama.
Obama leads Romney among Hispanic voters by 40 points, according to the latest Pew Research Center poll, confirming the candidate's weakness with the fastest-growing demographic in the country. Meanwhile, the Obama campaign made a push on Wednesday to reach out to Hispanic voters by launching Spanish-language ads in battleground states like Colorado.
On Sunday, in comments overheard by reporters from NBC and other outlets, Romney seemed worried about the chasm.
"We have to get Hispanic voters to vote for our party," he told donors, according to NBC. Latinos' overwhelming support for Democrats and Obama "spells doom for us," he said.
Though it's still unclear exactly how Romney plans to avoid this "doom," the campaign appeared to distance itself from Kris Kobach, a Yale-trained lawyer and Kansas state politician who crafted most of the recent state and local laws that crack down on illegal immigration.
A few months ago, Romney said in a press release that he was happy to have Kobach "on the team" and was looking forward to working with him to combat illegal immigration. Kobach told reporters that he was advising the governor on immigration issues. But a Romney spokesperson told Politico's Glenn Thrush on Tuesday that Kobach is a "supporter," not an adviser. Kobach told National Review Online later Tuesday that his role hasn't changed and he's still an informal adviser, and blamed Democrats for making it appear as if his job had been modified.
More...But is the "adviser" versus "supporter" difference just semantics? Maybe, but the distinction is likely important for some Hispanic voters who associate Kobach with policies that they believe scapegoat illegal immigrants and their children—many of whom are U.S. citizens—for the nation's economic and national security problems.Whatever his next move on Kobach, Romney signaled in his overheard comments that he may embrace a Republican version of the DREAM Act, which would legalize some immigrant young people who were brought to the U.S. as children. (Sen. Marco Rubio, a rumored vice presidential pick for Romney, has been working on a version of the DREAM Act that would legalize but not give citizenship to some young people who grew up in the country.) Romney also said Republicans should criticize Obama for falsely promising Latinos that he would pass immigration reform in his first year in office.
Latino voters are by no means a homogenous or single-issue group, and polls show that on aggregate, they care most about the economy and jobs, with immigration issues trailing behind. But Republican strategists stress that a hostile-sounding tone on immigration issues alienates many Hispanic voters, no matter the candidate's economic platform.
During the long and heated Republican primary, Romney has occasionally used a harsh tone against illegal immigrants. In a memorable debate exchange with Gov. Rick Perry, Romney said he fired a lawn company after he found out that it hired "illegals" to work on his lawn. "I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals," he said he told the company. He also brought the phrase "self deport" into the lexicon, explaining his theory that illegal immigrants will leave the country voluntarily and en masse when employers are made to check immigration status before hiring.
Navarro said that Romney can adopt a softer tone without flip-flopping on his earlier statement that he wouldn't support a path to legalization. "He can show some heart and sympathy towards the immigrants, the situation of these immigrant kids in particular, and at the same time show anger towards the failures of Obama and how he's used the Latino community as pawns," she said.Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who endorsed Romney and helped him win the Florida primary despite their disagreement over immigration reform, credited Romney for not "pandering" to Latinos, but said he hasn't done the best possible job of reaching out to them. "I think he's got a long way to go," he said.
Diaz-Balart agreed that tone is crucial, and blamed some Republicans for using a "nasty" tone on illegal immigration in the past. "I think frankly it sounded to Latinos as if Hispanics were not welcome," he said. "Governor Romney is not like that, he never has been."
Jennifer Korn, the director of the center-right Hispanic Leadership Network and a former Hispanic-affairs aide in the George W. Bush White House, said that it wouldn't hurt for Romney to talk about how he cares about immigrants and their contributions to the country. "I think Romney is a decent man and believes immigration is a wonderful thing for this country, so it would only benefit him if he were to extend those remarks and say the Hispanic community and other immigrant communities make up the fabric of our country and add to it," she said. Korn says Bush—who said in a 2006 immigration reform speech that "the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith, and lead responsible lives"—had "the language down," and meant it.
Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, compared to Sen. John McCain's 31 percent four years later, Navarro points out. She believes Romney will have to amass at least 37 percent of the vote to win, though the percentage depends on turnout. In the latest Pew poll, 27 percent of Hispanic voters said they backed Romney.
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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in St. Louis. (Michael Conroy/AP)
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
MIT OPENCOURSEWARE 2012: Educational materials that matter and supporting OCW
What I saw was inspiring and moving. I was amazed by the dedication and passion of the Haitian educators and students to improve teaching and learning in sometimes stark conditions. Some university classes are held in open spaces -- three walls with a roof, with little protection from the elements. This is especially difficult during the rainy season.
Most of the universities and schools were heavily damaged in the earthquake but where some buildings and computer labs and internal networks have been rebuilt, Internet connectivity remains limited. We provided two local universities copies of the OCW site, through the OCW mirror site program. The program is designed to offer access to our courses without the need to connect to the internet.
Mr. Jean Henri Vernet, Rector of the Université d'État d'Haïti, said: "This initiative will open a new gate for our students. Through this gate, they will find a comprehensive range of materials from the classrooms of one of the most prestigious universities in the world. These materials cover almost all areas of knowledge. Higher education is going to greatly benefit from this initiative. We will also benefit from exchanges among educators in Haiti and at MIT -- exchanges both in person and online. These exchanges will add a human touch that will enhance the technology."
I gave a brief demonstration of the OCW site and our OCW Scholar courses. The completeness of the Scholar course materials and the linear progression of these subjects in many ways offer guided learning and diminish the need for textbooks. Although Haiti still has quite a long road of recovery ahead of them, the resilience and optimism of these educators and others I met was extraordinary.
Educational materials that matter
My visit showed me in a concrete way how valuable OCW's free resources can be, especially in resource-scarce environments where there is overwhelming demand for learning opportunities. This experience, in addition to the helpful feedback from our users, reinforces our goals to continue to provide free MIT educational materials to anyone seeking knowledge.
We recently published five new OCW Scholar courses. These courses are incredibly in-depth in the way the subject matter is presented, explained and detailed. Although we are proud of our entire publication, the level of effort to produce these courses is equivalent to about five OCW courses. We have begun work on our next set of OCW Scholar courses which will include subjects in electrical engineering and computer science and mechanical engineering, and so please stay tuned. In the meantime, if you haven't already, I encourage you to visit OCW Scholar courses.
OCW materials (syllabi, lecture notes, assignments and exams) support a wide range of use by educators, students and independent learners, but we recognize the particular value of video lectures to our users. We strive to keep in step with that need and now have 58 courses available with audio and video content. We'll continue to increase the availability of these resources as well as update and publish new courses and provide exceptional supplemental resources that are also educational gems.
Supporting open education
Over the last ten years, the open educational landscape has changed dramatically. Where OCW was once the only institution providing free educational materials, now users have the opportunity to access thousands of courses from hundreds of organizations in a plethora of languages. The OpenCourseWare Consortium alone has more than 250 member institutions who are dedicated to making their own courses freely available.
Still, the global demand for knowledge is great but the on-going costs of producing MIT's vast repository of knowledge are significant. Each course we publish requires an investment of $10,000 -- $15,000 to collect course materials from faculty, ensure proper licensing for open sharing, and format materials for global distribution. Courses with video content cost about twice as much. We must also sustain a considerable technical infrastructure that manages content and distributes it through a worldwide network to a global audience and to mirror sites in bandwidth constrained regions.
We are grateful for the funding we receive from MIT, foundations and institutions that provide significant support for our work but donations from individuals like you have become increasingly important. Your support is vital to keeping MIT OpenCourseWare growing and vibrant, and demonstrates to our other funders the value you place on OCW.
In the upcoming weeks, we will launch our spring fundraising campaign. There are a number of ways you can help support OCW:
Make a donation to support our work
Ask your company to match your gift to OCW
Invite your company to make a corporate gift or become an OCW underwriter
Help regularly build OCW's future one course at a time through the OCW Course Champions Program
Shop via our Amazon.com links
Tell your friends and colleagues about OCW.
With your help, we can ensure that OCW continues to share MIT's wealth of knowledge, providing the educational opportunity for motivated people everywhere to improve their lives and change the world.
Sincerely,
Cecilia d'Oliveira
Executive Director
MIT OpenCourseWare
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