Appearing on Monday's NBC Nightly News, chief White House
correspondent spun the Supreme Court's decision on Arizona's immigration
law as exactly what the Democrats wanted: "Well, in crass political terms, today was a day where the Obama campaign was pretty happy with what happened and the Romney campaign was not very happy." [Listen to the audio [1]]
Todd touted liberal cynicism on the issue: "You talk to some Democratic
strategists and they say the part of the law that was upheld will only help them motivate Hispanics even more and help them essentially alienate them from the Republican Party."
On Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer encouraged Todd to recite more talking points on the topic: "Chuck, I asked the [Harvard Law School] Professor [Noah Feldman] to take the politics and the political spin out of it. Alright, you can place it back in for a second." Todd happily obliged: "...talking to some Democrats, they would argue that politically, when it comes to trying to fire up Hispanics for the President, they couldn't have designed a better Supreme Court ruling."
Echoing his Nightly News analysis, Todd argued:
Because they [Democrats] got to win the larger argument that states, when it comes to immigration, the federal government – you can't have 50 different immigration laws being put together in some sort of patchwork. But the part that angers Hispanics the most was left into place. And so now they get to use that as a way to fire up Hispanics. If you can't get Hispanic turnout up on a positive, on hope, then maybe you get it up on anger. And so now they have anger to sort of fuel them in getting the Hispanic vote.
Monday morning on MSNBC, just moments after the ruling was announced, Todd immediately proclaimed it to be, "the worst of all outcomes if you're Mitt Romney." [2]
Here is a transcript of Todd's June 25 Nightly News report:
7:05PM ET
BRIAN WILLIAMS: And now we're going to talk about politics and the law.
First of all, all of this, of course, taking place in a presidential
election year. With us now, our chief White House correspondent and
political director Chuck Todd, who is at the White House. Chuck, look at
this for us vis-a-vis the campaign under way.
CHUCK TODD: Well, in crass political terms, today was a day where the
Obama campaign was pretty happy with what happened and the Romney
campaign was not very happy. Let's start with President Obama. You talk
to some Democratic strategists and they say the part of the law that was
upheld will only help them motivate Hispanics even more and help them
essentially alienate them from the Republican Party.
As for Mitt Romney, Brian, you saw today he doesn't like talking about
this issue right now because they know the fine line they have to walk
between not looking like they're contradicting what Romney said during
the primary campaign and not alienating Hispanics. He said today he was
against the decision, if you will. He wished that the Supreme Court had
given states more leeway, but he's trying not to talk about it much. He
wants to be talking about the economy.
WILLIAMS: Alright. Chuck Todd on the White House lawn. Thanks. That's politics.
Here is a portion of Todd's June 26 exchange with Lauer on Today:
7:12AM ET
(...)
LAUER: Chuck, I asked the Professor to take the politics and the
political spin out of it. Alright, you can place it back in for a
second. What impact is this ruling going to have in terms of politics
and the upcoming election?
CHUCK
TODD: Well, look, I think short-term just look at the body language of
the campaigns. Any day that the Romney campaign is not talking about the
economy, they believe that's a lost day. So under those circumstances,
yesterday was a lost day. It was sort of a continuation of what's been a
rough ten days of Romney trying to walk this fine line on immigration.
Meanwhile, look at the Obama campaign. And to be completely crass about
this, in talking to some Democrats, they would argue that politically,
when it comes to trying to fire up Hispanics for the President, they
couldn't have designed a better Supreme Court ruling.
Because they got to win the larger argument that states, when it comes
to immigration, the federal government – you can't have 50 different
immigration laws being put together in some sort of patchwork. But the
part that angers Hispanics the most was left into place. And so now they
get to use that as a way to fire up Hispanics. If you can't get
Hispanic turnout up on a positive, on hope, then maybe you get it up on
anger. And so now they have anger to sort of fuel them in getting the
Hispanic vote.
(...)
-- Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. Click here [3] to follow Kyle Drennen on Twitter.