Los Angeles Times
By Seema Mehta, Kathleen Hennessey
October 9, 2014
President
Obama said Thursday that Republicans would be committing political
suicide if they continued to hold up an immigration overhaul effort in
Congress, leading the
next generation of young people to reject the party for years to come.
If
they look at the GOP’s immigration policies, a whole generation of
Americans will determine “that party does not seem to care about me and
my life,” Obama said at a
meeting in Santa Monica with young entrepreneurs.
Although
the immigration legislation that stalled in the House is all but dead
for the year, Obama said he still had hope for its passage. House
Republicans will see the
political peril ahead, he predicted.
“I’m
confident, though, eventually — and I think it’s going to happen over
the next two years — Congress is going to see the light,” he said.
Obama
made the remarks at an event that sought to reach out to so-called
millennials, the generation of Americans born roughly between 1980 and
2000. The stop was part
of Obama’s campaign season effort to promote his economic agenda to the
Democratic base, particularly young people, women, African Americans
and Latinos.
The
president has come in for criticism — and seen his poll numbers drop
among Latinos — after backpedaling from a promise to unilaterally make
changes in immigration
rules by the end of summer. The White House announced the delay in
September, bowing to Democrats who feared a backlash to his actions
might endanger their efforts to retain control of the Senate.
Obama’s
Santa Monica appearance, held at Cross Campus, a co-working space
catering to freelancers and entrepreneurs, was the first event in a
three-day California swing
dedicated mostly to fundraising for Democrats in tight races this fall.
After
a quick visit to a volunteer office for West Los Angeles congressional
candidate Ted Lieu, Obama traveled to the Brentwood home of actress
Gwyneth Paltrow for a
reception and dinner. (Tickets for the reception started at $1,000, and
the dinner cost at least $15,000 per person.)
There, Obama touted economic gains during his presidency but noted that many Americans “remain anxious.”
“Most
of the gains in our economy go to the folks in this lovely yard,” the
president said, adding that “everything I have done to this point and
everything I want to
do over the next two years is based on a simple proposition that here
in America, it doesn’t matter what you look like, where you come from,
what faith you belong to, where you started, who you love. If you are
willing to work hard and take responsibility,
then you should be able to make it in America. That’s the essence of
who we are.”
Before
the event in Santa Monica, the White House released a report on
millennials that described them as diverse, tech-savvy and highly
educated. Forty-two percent of
millennials identify with a race or ethnicity other than non-Hispanic
white, roughly twice the share of the baby boomers when they were the
same age. Sixty percent of adult millennials have attended college,
whereas 46% of baby boomers did so, the report said.
The
younger group provided a reliable pool of enthusiastic support for
Obama in 2008 and again in 2012, although that support has flagged.
Still, it remains a target for
November, along with other voter groups that tend to spurn midterm
elections.
Obama
noted that millennials entered the workforce during one of the worst
recessions in the country’s history, setting them back financially for
years.
“A lot of cynics have said, ‘Well, that makes many of you part of a lost generation,’” Obama said. “I don’t buy that.”
His
unfulfilled economic agenda — raising the minimum wage and investing
more in infrastructure and education — would quicken the economic
recovery, Obama argued. And
he took a swing at his opponents in Congress.
“The
only reason we’re not doing it right now is we’ve got a Congress that’s
been spending a little too much time worrying about the next election
rather than the next
generation,” he said.
The president came away from the event with at least one benefit: a job offer.
Ariel
Jalali, chief executive of Sensay, a firm that he told the president
allowed people to “monetize” their knowledge and use it to help others,
called a role there
“super rewarding.”
“You’re offering me a job?” Obama replied.
“That’s right,” Jalali said. “So what do you think?”
The
president allowed that he enjoys the prospect upon leaving office of
being able to “dabble a little bit in the issues of the day while being
in sweatpants and a baseball
cap.” He joked about checking out the job’s perks but closed with a
request that the young entrepreneurs keep the public interest in mind.
“So
even as you’re doing all this neat, cool, interesting stuff, do pay
attention to what’s not always as neat and cool, but really necessary,
in Washington, D.C., and
in your local communities,” he said.
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