Posted on 11/15/2006 10:36:23 AM PST by Dane
One of the panel members on Brit Hume listed off several last night. Mainly they were Republicans that desperately tried to salvage their losing race by talking up enforcement only positions.
All I heard out of Heyworth for the last year has been borderfenceborderfenceborderfence. One could make the case that being tough on border security does not make swing voters vote against someone. But for certian it demonstrates that talking up border enforcement isn't a winner.
Swing voters are the one's who decide the election, and they're obviously not motivated by tough talk. The base loves it, but the base that likes tough talk was going to vote for J.D. anyway. The Swing voters want border issues fixed (note the polls), but that doesn't mean they want simpleton toughness when the problem is obviously more complex.
The GOP, as a whole, DID NOT EVEN PLAY hard line on immigration in the 06 election.
In fact, astonishingly, the Republicans played the illegal immigration issue in the WORST POSSIBLE way to gain any support.
First off, GWBush angered a substantial portion of the GOP base by concocting this hairbrained "amnesty for illegals", which is so against the rule of law that even Democrats opposed it.
And even though the Republican controlled House was able to stop Bush's hairbrained plan, the GOP FAILED to even fund the border fence until so close to the Nov. 7 election that it got lost in the haze of partisan fingerpointing and anger.
And THEN someone discovered that the border fence was not even properly funded, and thus could possibly be squashed by a future Congress, or maybe RIGHT AFTER THE ELECTION.
So, to sum it up, the GOP not only got NO EXTRA SUPPORT from the Republican OR conservative Democrat base, the fence issue likely angered many illegally voting Hispanics AND it also likely angered Hispanics who possibly could have been planning to vote GOP out of respect for President Bush.
It ended up being the WORST OF BOTH WORLDS for the Republicans, and they have only themselves to blame.
No wonder the base was demoralized.
Not only don't I trust this incestual relationship, I dont think Mary Matelin is very effective in arguing the GOP case.
She is more of a novelity in the eyes of the lamestream media, and thus continues to get thrust into the spotlight.
And her nasal voice drives me nuts.
Immigration was barely an issue in '06.
It was lost in the haze of hate-mongering accusations in October as the mainstream press ran story after story after story about the HIGHEST RECORD of US military deaths in the Iraqi war.
I recall specifically, the week of Oct 15-22, the top news story EVERY day was death, destruction, quagmire, etc.
Then, Kerry made his bone-headed quip about 'non educated' getting "stuck" in Iraq.
So we had ANOTHER WEEK of non-stop Iraq death and destruction stories.
Prior to that, between Sept 28 and Oct 10, we had non-stop radio and TV stories about Foley the HYPOCRITICAL REPUBLICAN Perv Homo.Inbetween those two stories, we had Cunningham and Dey going to JAIL, etc.
The lamestream media was very, very effective in REFUSING to let out any good news this election cycle, and I am still seething.
The only thing that makes sense about those two being married is we are being scammed somehow.
Thanks to Bush, many hispanics were so close to getting amnesty they could TASTE IT.
Thus, building a more secure border fence seemed radical to them, and they likely bolted to the Dems.
STOPPING this flood of illegals BEFORE we make any further decisions is the ONLY logical thing to do.
What's the sense in granting this, or helping that if the problem is only going to continue to get worst and worst.
WHAT THE HELL is so hard to understand about that?
Any Hispanic person who cant understand that likely was Democratic thinking in the first place.
Meant to say that Tempe is not a conservative district, because of the campus.
Glad to see the correction I was going to take you to task on that one ;)
But perhaps that number is exceeded by people pushing enforcement first who won seats from incumbents who were for "comprehensive" legislation.
Dane, can you point out any candidate in any competitive race that ran as pro-amnesty, porous border, soft on employers? Looks like you'd advise them to do so, and they'd win big.
Uh very liberal(really communist) democrat sherwood brown in Ohio is pro-amnesty and he won big over Mike DeWine.
And Pro-Amnesty DeWine was powerless to run anything against him, and lost.
S. 2611 (Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 )
DeWine (R-OH), Yea
I'm beginning to believe that some of our GOP defeats were engineered by the Bush-controlled RNC as a tactic to dampen opposition to the amnesty bill. IOW--we were sold out of our majority to pass an amnesty bill.
Think about how delighted Tony Snow was on the morning after the defeats of conservative GOP congressmen--I think he tipped the hand of the administration.
I think FR ought to review the articles and commentary surrounding the issue of immigration and 06 Congressional defeats.
I believe at least some of them were engineered by the Bush RNC.
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