“Let’s Pretend.” Hispanics voted for Obama with something like 67% last time (in 2008), but they are torqued with him now. So Obama has a meeting with “influential Hispanics” to shore up his support there.
But Obama is in a bind: if he caters to Hispanics by supporting amnesty he alienates Blacks and white Americans. They a) feel that illegal immigrants are taking labor-intensive entry-level jobs (Blacks) and b) are a threat to the security of the nation (whites). So Obama has to find a way to mollify the Hispanics while not losing the rest of the country.
And that’s part of the problem with catering to special interest groups, like the democrat party has done. The democrats have long been the party of special interests, and they have built an electorate based on dividing people into classes, races, etc. But if you please Peter, you offend Paul. Aye, there’s the rub! The strategy that has worked so well for democrats over the last 70 years has a weakness, and that weakness is coming (perhaps) to the fore right now.
It’s not that these groups are suddenly going to be conservative republicans–they’re not. But they may well lose interest and just sit this next election out. And once they do they are much more likely to be influenced by conservatives and republicans. Hispanics typically have values that are much closer to the republican stance than to the democrat one. So there are real risks here.