Posted on 05/27/2011 6:54:34 AM PDT by cll
Fifty years.
That's how long it's been since a sitting American President visited Puerto Rico. The last was John Kennedy in December 1961.
So when word leaked out that President Obama will commemorate that Kennedy visit with a one-day stop in Puerto Rico on June 14, many in Washington were caught by surprise.
The news electrified residents of the Caribbean island, which has been a U.S. territory for 112 years. It also provided yet another sign that Obama is determined to offer Latino voters many reasons to support his reelection effort.
Still, Obama's visit is aimed more at the U.S. than the island. After all, even though Puerto Rico's 4 million residents are U.S. citizens, they can't vote for President and they send only one nonvoting member to Congress.
What they do have is lots of relatives among the 4 million Puerto Ricans in the 50 states.
Perhaps the most important state is Florida, which has outstripped all the others in the growth of its Puerto Rican population and is the biggest battleground state in presidential elections.
The 2010 Census counted 848,000 Puerto Ricans living in Florida. That's a 76% jump from 10 years earlier. There are almost as many Puerto Ricans in the Sunshine State as there are Cuban-Americans.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
There is no political reason for him to go there him and the Demon Queen just are taking the trips so we have to pay for them..
There is no political reason for him to go there him and the Demon Queen just are taking the trips so we have to pay for them..
many from puerto rico have moved to FL.
specifically the I-4 corridor.
Obama thinks he can win FL if he focuses on the blue urban areas.
Personally I suspect we’ll see another push for PR statehood in the midst of our growing chaos.
Sounds like an excuse to log in some more beachtime. Is Moochelle going?
Puerto Rico is a prime convention destination—not quite Las Vegas, but a pretty popular one. Obama won’t run into any SEIU bigshots in Puerto Rico unless they travel with him there.
What happened in the Dem primaries in ‘08 has no bearing on what will happen next year. Unless some truly extraordinary event happens to change things, Obama is running unopposed for their nomination.
You might want to do some searching. All the finest government unions have nested in PR.
“My travel agent said I could spend six nights in Puerto Rico. No days, just six nights....I asked him what do I do during the day, and he said, I don’t care what you do, just stay out of Puerto Rico.” - Rodney Dangerfield
“In the 2008 Democrat primary in PR, Hillary beat Obama 80 to 20.”
I just looked it up. There are two SEIU local branches in Puerto Rico (1199 and 1996), which has a population of around 3.8 million, as compared to four SEIU branches in Rhode Island (334, 401, 580 and 1199), which has a population of around 1.2 million. http://www.seiu.us/SEIU_Locals.html
So, yes, the SEIU certainly has a presence in Puerto Rico, but it’s not like it’s the national headquarters for the union or anything.
Not yet.
No surprise there.
Everything Obama does is with politics in mind or self-serving.
The SEIU was run out of here by local unions after they attempted to wrest away the representation of the island’s teachers.
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