Talk show host Cristina endorses Obama

Television talk show host Cristina Saralegui announced her endorsement of President Barack Obama, saying this weekend that there's too much at stake not to speak up when Hispanics could "very well decide the next election."

It is the first-ever presidential endorsement for the popular Miami media figure, often called the "Hispanic Oprah" for her two-decade run on Univisión. Obama for America released a video in English and Spanish with a message from Saralegui to the Hispanic community.

"President Obama, I was very fortunate to live the American dream and I know that only you will make it possible for millions more to do the same," she said in a statement provided by the campaign. "You’ve had our back, and now, with utmost respect and admiration, I have yours."

She is "one of the most trusted names in the Hispanic community and we're honored to have Cristina be a spokesperson for the campaign, speaking directly to Hispanic voters about the President's accomplishments," said campaign spokesman Jim Messina.

Her nod comes at a time when both Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are actively seeking Hispanic voters. Both men will travel to Florida this week to speak in Orlando at the annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

Mitt Romney's immigration stance: What Would Rubio Do?

Mitt Romney has a more nuanced immigration stance these days.

Call it WWRD, an abbreviation for What Would Rubio Do?

That was the case this weekend after President Obama made an election-year executive order that allows hundreds of thousands of young immigrants brought into the country illegally as children to remain and work in the United States for two years without the threat of deportation.

Romney’s initial reaction?

Silence.

Then came Florida’s Marco Rubio, the only Hispanic Republican in the U.S. Senate and a vice-presidential shortlister for Romney.

“Today’s announcement will be welcome news for many of these kids desperate for an answer, but it is a short term answer to a long term problem,” Rubio said shortly after Obama’s announcement.

Rubio also criticized Obama for “ignoring the Constitution and going around Congress” because the executive order essentially amounts to lawmaking by the executive branch of government.

After that, Romney got the memo.

As liberals and some conservatives started howling about his deafening silence, Romney stepped off his tour bus in New Hampshire and fretted about how Obama’s plan wasn’t a “long-term” solution.

“I’d like to see legislation that deals with this issue,” he said. “And I happen to agree with Marco Rubio, as he will consider this issue. He said this is an important matter. We have to find a long-term solution. But the president’s action makes reaching a long-term solution more difficult.”

That’s true to a degree. But what’s even more true is that the party of Rubio and Romney stands much more in the way of immigration legislation these days.

More here

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Univision on Mitt Romney's no-details immigration plan

From Univision:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Sunday he would work as president to pass a law providing “long-term” relief for undocumented youth, criticizing President Obama’s new policyas a politically-motivated, stop-gap measure.

But Romney declined to expand on what his plan would entail and wouldn’t say whether he would undo Obama’s new initiative that temporarily halts deportations for certain undocumented youth who were brought to the U.S. at a young age, which appeared to energize the president’s Latino supporters ahead of the November election.

“My anticipation is I’d come into office and say we need to get this done, on a long-term basis, not this kind of stop-gap measure,” Romney said during an interview that aired on CBS’s Face the Nation program. “I would work with Congress to put in place a long-term solution for the children of those that have come here illegally.”

More here

Marco Rubio's 'An American Son,' the CBS edition

Here's CBS's redux of Marco Rubio's autobiography, and our take here

 

Connected company used its muscle to seek advantage in broadband contact

In 2009, with more than a quarter of all Floridians without broadband access to the Internet at home, state officials lined up to get some of the $7 billion in federal stimulus money to finance state-based programs to increase access.

Enter Connected Nation, a little known but well connected Washington-based company. It won the Florida contract to use $2.5 million to map the broadband gaps for use by policy makers and telecommunications companies.

A year later, when the state won a second grant for $6.3 million to extend the broadband efforts, Connected Nation, a non-profit company, believed it had signed up to be part of a public-private partnership with the state that entitled the firm to a no-bid shot at that money too. But the Department of Management Services, the state agency that housed the project, disagreed.

DMS said the grant requires it to use some of the money to pay for three more years of broadband mapping and the rest to expand broadband access in libraries and schools. DMS hired eight contract employees to handle administration and provide services, paying them between $72,000 and $140,000 a year until the grant ends in 2014, and defended it as an efficient use of state funds.

That began a bitter feud between Connected Nation and DMS, an agency with a lengthy history of distrust among state budget leaders. In an audacious display of lobbying clout, Connected Nation got the Legislature to force DMS off the contract and steer the second grant to the firm.

Now, the broadband mapping contract negotiations are behind schedule; the federal government has warned the state that it could lose what’s left of the grant and Florida’s broadband expansion efforts lag behind many other states.

“It’s distracted and kept us from doing as much as we might have done,’’ said Bill Price, director of Broadband Services for the state. Story here.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/17/v-fullstory/2850998/connected-company-muscled-state.html#storylink=cpy