The only shift they sense is negative towards them. It looks like desperation.
If Romney comes close to winning MA (he's only behind by 11 in the last Rasmussen poll FWIW), he’ll win a landslide in both the popular and Electoral vote totals nationwide.
More likely this is a pre-emptive move in advance to the Supreme Court hearing on 25 Apr on the Arizona Immigration laws. Obama knows he will lose all or most of that battle. They have to get the folks riled up about it.
Then you have several voter ID laws that may very well get heard this session. Texas appears to be a good shot for a Supreme Court hearing on voter ID.
The SC has not been good for Obama in the last three years. The Sackett EPA ruling, the ruling about the religious employee, a couple of rulings against the drilling moratorium in the gulf and others have not gone the administrations way, and they may just lose on ObamaCare.
It’s hard on the moral to have that many cases deemed unconstitutional by the appeals courts and the SC.