2016 Presidential Politics unofficially started tonight

from The Gray Area:

President Obama delivered his address to the nation on immigration reform as expected tonight. Also, as expected, the President announced executive action to fix America’s immigration policy. He positioned it further as expected about holding families together, our history of immigrant contributions and the right thing to do. After years of saying he was “the President, not an Emperor” and he could not do this on his own, he decided to do it anyway. The President did this for two reasons, distract the new Republican Congress and the nation behind the details of a constitutional crisis and start the 2016 Presidential campaign now.

1. Distract the new Republican Congress and the nation behind the details of a constitutional crisis. Certainly his lawyers, like everyone else, know this executive order will be like red meat in front of constitutionally focused Republicans. The Democrat strategy is to have the Republican Congress and all the talking head of the right tie up the major messaging in the media over the next two years with the constitutional wrangling. We won’t hear as much about the horror of ISIS. Obamacare will fade as a focus. The IRS, Benghazi, Fast & Furious, et al scandals will get little attention. And all of a sudden it will be Presidential election time. The Democrats can now point to the Republican Congress doing nothing but headhunting for Obama. Since it will take two years easy to litigate this issue and President Obama is not up for re-election, whatever happens legally doesn’t matter. And i am certain the President’s lawyers expect the legal fight to be difficult but that they can successfully defend.

2. The 2016 Presidential campaign started tonight. MSNBC post speech panel made this point number 2 in there review of the speech tonight. First saying this was about holding families together and much needed. The saying, make no mistake about it, “the next President can undo this order just as quickly as President Obama issued it” tonight. And there you have it. The reason why this speech happened tonight. The reason why the President had to get out in front of the 2015v Republican Congress who would certainly pass an immigration bill not dissimilar to what the President announced tonight. By getting in front of this inevitable Republican legislation with his own executive order, no matter what Congress does, it will be taking away what President Obama gave to illegal immigrants. And we know all to well, entitlements, once provided, are virtually impossible to reverse. And the cherry on top of this strategy – Latinos listen up, you must vote for a Democrat President in 2016 or risk this entitlement being reversed by a Republican President.

Purely political and purely brilliant political strategy.

The Republican Congress if it is wise can negate this somewhat, but we will have to wait and see their reaction. Any Republican strategy that is overly aggressive will fall right into the Democrat 2016 trap.