Rahm Emmanuel made Karl Rove
look like a piker last November.
Posted on 01/27/2007 8:55:29 AM PST by spintreebob
Former congressional candidate Vernon Robinson sounds resigned, and more than a little tired, when you ask him to explain his defeat. "The 2006 election was not a referendum on immigration," he says. "I would have liked it to be, but it didn't happen."
That's an understatement. In the tumultuous political year of 2006, Robinson, a former city councilman from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, became one of the country's most notorious voices for a crackdown on illegal immigration. In March, as the Republican-led House of Representatives wrestled with a harsh reform bill that would build a wall on the border and classify crossers as felons, Robinson's campaign launched a TV ad that opened with the theme from The Twilight Zone and Rod Serling-style narration: "If you're a conservative Republican, watching the news these days can make you feel as though you're in the Twilight Zone....The aliens are here, but they didn't come in a spaceship. They came across our unguarded Mexican border by the millions."
The ad was a sensation. For everyone who saw it in North Carolina's 13th District, where Robinson was challenging Democratic Rep. Brad Miller, dozens more saw it on YouTube and on blogs that trafficked the ad across the Web. "This is tough," Hardball host Chris Matthews swooned, re-running the ad on his MSNBC chat fest. "It's strong, it makes fun of the other side viciously, but I remember it. I'm going to remember this ad."
Robinson, who had already alienated Republican allies like Jack Kemp with his approach to immigration, issued more commercials blasting the Democrat for voting against a border wall or a cutoff on benefits for undocumented workers. One radio ad set Miller-bashing lyrics to the Beverly Hillbillies theme ("Come and hear me tell about a politician named Brad. He gave illegal aliens everything we had!"). The Democrats were spooked, even before the influential political magazine Congressional Quarterly pondered the tone of the campaign and increased its odds for a Robinson upset.
"Both myself and my opponent thought it was going to be a photo finish," Robinson remembers. "He wouldn't have stood in rain for two hours on Election Day if he thought it wouldn't be close."
If so, both men were wrong. The Democrat, who had won 59 percent of the vote in 2004, thumped the well-funded Robinson by 28 points. After a year in which the immigration issue inspired reform bills, citizen border patrols, mass marches of undocumented workers, and untold hours of talk show screaming, a candidate who had seemed to strike a hidden chord with voters lost in a rout.
It's not a new thing for the media to misread the mood of the country on a hot issue. But the crumbling of the immigration backlash was almost without precedent. Poll after poll showed voters angry about the influx of Mexican workers and willing to do almost anything to stop it. A much-cited April survey by Rasmussen Reports showed a whopping 30 percent of voters ready to elect a third-party presidential candidate who "promised to build a barrier along the Mexican border and make enforcement of immigration law his top priority." Politicians, who like to pretend they ignore the polls and lead with their guts, were clearly sweating that datum.
In April, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean declared that Republicans would wield the immigration issue the way "they used gay marriage" in 2004-tossing a banana peel on the floor and waiting for Democrats to walk on by. Lo and behold, the GOP did. Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum papered the state with stickers announcing Democrat Bob Casey's support for immigrant amnesty: "13 Million Illegal Aliens Are Counting on Him." He also campaigned with the mayor of Hazelton, who was pushing a town law that would fine landlords or employers who dealt with illegal immigrants.
Casey drubbed Santorum by 18 points. In Luzerne County, where Hazelton is located, he beat him by 21 points. But that result didn't shock like the fate of Arizona's J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf. Hayworth, who'd opposed a harsh immigration state ballot measure in 2004, entered the campaign with the publication of an anti-immigration book called Whatever It Takes. Readers who flipped past the cover photo of Hayworth hanging tough in front of the border fence got to read the congressman's thoughts on dispatching troops to the country's southern flank and quashing Mexico's secret desire to reconquer the Southwest.
Graf, who was running for the seat of immigration moderate (and fellow Republican) Jim Kolbe, got financial support from the border-patrolling Minuteman project. Both men lost congressional seats in districts that had twice voted for George W. Bush.
Those losses, lined up next to each other like evidence at a trial, look like they debunk the immigration hype. But it's no use getting a Republican to admit that the issue didn't go the hard-liners' way. It wasn't that voters didn't want to close the border, the hard-liners assert, it was that voters who wanted to do that were distracted by anger over the war in Iraq and other issues, and voted for Democrats anyway.
"Immigration was a winning issue," says National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ed Petru. "You wouldn't have seen so many ads on it if our candidates weren't on the winning side of the immigration issue. It helped stress the contrast between our candidates and the Democrats who favored amnesty. But having a winning issue is not the same as having an issue that can compensate for all the disadvantages our candidates had this cycle."
You'll hear the same tune from the candidates themselves. "The Democrats did a good job of nationalizing the war in Iraq and national sentiment against Congress," says Graf. "The sixth year of a presidency is historically not a good year for the party in the majority. We had a late primary and an eight-week general election. Between that and the party unity I didn't have on my side, it was just not going to go our way."
In other words, the hard-liners have a bucket of red herrings. Epochal issues can change an electorate's mood or historical patterns; eight years ago, anger over the drawn-out impeachment of Bill Clinton inspired voters to add more Democrats to Congress, despite the "rule" of the sixth-year slump. If a serious border crackdown and a Mexican Wall were really burning up American passions, they would have moved voters to action.
Some hard-liners argue they were moved. "The same voters who opposed Graf and Hayworth overwhelmingly approved four get-tough ballot measures," says Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a border hawk.
But those referenda didn't comport with the hard-line approach. One made English the official language of Arizona, a measure beloved not just by the anti-immigration crowd but by many pro-immigration pundits who think it will encourage assimilation. The other three initiatives cut off free social services for noncitizens, more in line with the harshness hard-liners expected from voters but a far cry from the "kick 'em out, build a wall" attitude they claimed to be riding to victory.
The idea that Americans might be more compassionate about immigrants than they let on is a tough one for hard-liners to comprehend. Most Americans, though eager to exercise some control over the border, don't see their would-be fellow citizens as a menace. Immigration hawks who look at those huddled masses and choose to see an ugly threat will keep getting the same results they got this year. They'll lose.
"If you can delude yourself into believing that then I'm sure you can delude yourself into believing anything."
Sounds like he's not the one deluded.
I don't know if he's right or wrong. There is great anti-illegal sentiment among the active political conservatives.
But I can't find it amongst any normal people I talk to. They don't like illegal immigrants, they don't like houses with 12 adults and 7 cars clogging the streets, they don't like schools where their children are minorities and they have to hire spanish-speaking teachers.
But they aren't looking to vote for someone simply because they are against illegals. Meanwhile, the pro-immigrant forces seem much more motivated to vote against what they call "hate".
Except in places where the pro-illegal people have actually won major concessions, like where day labor centers are built -- then the anti-illegal crowd, seeing contrete evidence of how much they are losing, will vote the issue.
I think President Bush did his best to frame the issue in a way that doesn't come across as "anti-hispanic". I think Tancredo and company ARE anti-hispanic; I could be wrong, but if nothing else my belief in that is echoed by millions of voters, and perception drives votes. Bush was going for the middle ground, not supporting amnesty, supporting a really tough guest worker program.
But the anti-illegal crowd mistook his soothing rhetoric for weakness, thought they had a winning issue, destroyed any chance of winning ANYTHING, and lost the election. So now we are stuck with the DEMOCRATS idea of fixing the problem, and none of us are going to like it.
The key to winning is often misleading your opponents. A fake run doesn't work if everybody rejects the play because, thinking it is a real run, argue that you need to pass.
"Note, I am not saying that everybody loves illegals (like I do). But the reality is that most people, including many conservative Republicans, just don't see the reason for the hysteria and irrational passion."
Well you see Bob, the reason is this: Many of us like living under a Capitalistic system. To maintain such a system you must have the rule of law. When government officials pick and chose which laws they will enforce in order to achieve a certain end you ultimately wind up with chaos and anarchy.
Once the average citizen perceives that the laws are meaningless and won't be enforced why should he follow the ones he does not like? Why not cheat on taxes? Why be honest in business dealings, etc.?
Once a certain threshold is reached guess what: you'll have the sort of Capitalist system that they have in Russia. Is it worth it to save a few bucks on cheap labor? Is no one capable of extrapolation or foresight anymore?
The MSM would not let it become an election issue. They went along with all the politico's that didn't want it to be an issue (mainly dems) The sad thing is Tancredo will try to make it an issue, as he has over the last 8 years, but will get little or no backing from the RINO's...no backing no news, if a reporter doesn't shove a mic in your face for a comment, or doesn't ask an immigration question...guess what...there's no story
"The RNC Memo warned the GOP candidates."
That memo lied. There was no great call for "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" from Republican voters. There is no reason to tie our security to an earned-citizenship amnesty.
Conservatives need to do a little warning to the RNC.
Anybody talking about Foley lately? I've never seen a more precisely timed, carefully orchestrated October surprise attack....ever. Masterful. Meaningless in the grand scope of things but masterful.
AZ is a good example. Hayworth campaigned/lost on enforcement only. His opponent campaigned/won on enforcement, guest workers, and amnesty
"The 2006 exit polling confirmed the RNC memo."
Which exit poll? Conducted by whom? The RNC?
then you should support him.
How succinct. Is this the Bushbot mantra? Is it chanted robotically?
"How succinct. Is this the Bushbot mantra? Is it chanted robotically?"
Apparently, we exist only to serve the party leadership.
That would seem to fly in the face of representative government, of course.
You really undermine President Bush by dividing Republicans.
Reason is a Libertarian magazine.
I support Bush and voted twice for him.
I also want the border area 20 miles south of me secured.
You are sitting in Pa. telling those of us who deal with the crime, millions of dollars of a year of San Diego taxpayers supporting illegals and
20 miles south of me are beheadings, kidnappings, and worse daily.
I think it's a lot like people elsewhere, have almost no way of conceptualizing what it's like in Seoul, or Tel Aviv, where one is within miles of millions of potential adversaries.
I'm not equating Mexico with NK, or with Syria, but to someone sitting in Pennsylvania, it just doesn't compute.
Perhaps if the poster were to imagine 1,000,000 illegal New Jersey fugitives pouring into Philadelphia every year, that might help them to understand. :)
(with tongue in cheek apologies to those in NJ)
Oh BS....what do the real facts show us from the past on this...exactly what happened...
Those who post on FR who are against the war or securing
the border to stop the illegals are no better than those who still deny there was a Holocaust
Both those saying that the GOP lost in '06 because it was too conservative or that it was too moderate are wrong. Also, exit polls showed that immigration was highly important to very few voters. I wish people here would get those reasons out of their heads.
A large combination of things contributed to the loss, but the primary reasons were the unpopularity of President Bush, the war in Iraq, and corruption.
Oh, really? Here is a anti-Hayworth Mitchell ad , that mentions everything but Hayworth's immigration stance. I don't think you can show me any pro-amnesty Mitchell material. So too can I show you a zillion anti-amnesty ads by putting "immigration ad" as a search at YouTube . I doubt you can show me a single pro-amnesty 2006 election ad.
The GOP memo you tout...
The public wants a comprehensive solution that includes reform on three fronts: (i) strengthening border security/law enforcement to stem the flow of illegal immigration, (ii) enhancing the avenues through which immigrants can lawfully and safely enter the U.S. for work and (iii) creating a compassionate, practical and equitable way for those illegal immigrants already in the U.S. to legally enter the system [i.e. amnesty].
...claims that the electorate wants amnesty, but no one heeding the memo dared put it into their ads. By becoming unpopular, Bush pooped in the GOP punch bowl, resulting in GOP defeat. You go poking around among the many fallen and cry "See here, a border hawk!" It proves nothing.
Bush was prominent in his pro-Amnesty stance. If he had been on the ballot would he have fared better than the anti-illegal GOP congressmen?
Under "Governer", pick a state & click. Scroll towards the bottom where you will see the question, "should illegals be offered legal status" or "deported"
Repeat for each state
LOL!!!!!
I double dare you to prove that.
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