Posted on 11/16/2007 9:45:34 PM PST by neverdem
AS THE DEMOCRATS brought their weary road show to Vegas tonight, most analysts suspected that Hillary Clinton would get a mulligan on the illegal immigration question that she botched so badly at their last tussle. It played out as expected. Right out of the box, Campbell Brown asked the candidates about illegal immigration. Rather than focus on their own purported solutions to the crisis, they collectively decided to focus their ire on George W. Bush for not solving the problem first.
This has become the default refrain for Democrats when they have nothing to say or no real means of moving the ball forward--blame Bush. Among the more fevered elements of their base, it usually works. They blame Bush for everything, so of course they were willing to blame him for a liberal governor's dreadful plan to grant licenses to illegal immigrants, and a presidential aspirant's clumsy refusal to distance herself from such foolishness.
Of course, the Democrats have a fool-proof plan to deal with illegal immigration: Comprehensive Immigration Reform! The best thing about offering such hollow rhetoric is that it allows them to avoid nettlesome details such as explaining precisely what they would do with an illegal immigrant population that is now greater than 12 million. The Democrats can blather all they want about "comprehensive immigration reform." Much like "comprehensive healthcare reform" and "comprehensive entitlement reform," the rhetoric sounds much more appealing before they begin fleshing out their plans, whatever those plans may be.
The Democrats' problem with illegal immigration runs deep. All the sitting Senators who are pursuing the presidency already endorsed a very detailed plan for "comprehensive immigration reform" when they voted for cloture on McCain/Kennedy back in June. Although it never used the word "amnesty," McCain/Kennedy allowed for a form of amnesty with its Z Visas. That's why virtually everyone outside the United States Congress and the White House vigorously opposed it.
EVEN DAVID BRODER WADDLED towards the immigration issue Wednesday, calling it the Democrats' potential "iceberg." The fact that it took the Dean of Washington Journalism five months after McCain/Kennedy went down to discover this obvious fact provides some indication of just how out of touch Washington is when it comes to the immigration issue.
A quick example: In the rather important state of Ohio, the Quinnipiac outfit polled Ohioans this week on whether they supported the idea of giving drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. The answer won't surprise anyone who's paid attention to the immigration debate, but it has stunned the Beltway class. 84 percent said it was a bad idea, while a whopping 11 percent thought it was a good idea.
And yet last night in Vegas, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson both said they thought it was a swell idea. Republicans who feared that Obama might be a more difficult candidate to face than Hillary in the general election can now breathe easy; last night, he dramatically reduced his chances of winning the presidency. It was yet another not-ready-for-primetime moment for the senator--and this one will leave a mark.
To get back to Hillary, one can't help but wonder why she endorsed the Spitzer plan--or quasi-endorsed it or semi-endorsed it or whatever she did when Tim Russert questioned her on the matter. Perhaps she was a prisoner of her conscience, and was courageously willing to accept the political consequences for taking an unpopular position. (I'll pause for a moment to give you a chance to wipe the coffee off your computer screen.)
To find the answer to this puzzler, apply Occam's Razor--Senator Clinton had no idea how unpopular her semi-position would be. Indeed, the entire Democratic slate of presidential aspirants still doesn't grasp the visceral reactions that illegal immigration elicits. Here's another nugget from the Quinnipiac Ohio poll: 61 percent oppose giving a public school education to the children of illegal immigrants.
Politicians who favor educating the children of illegal immigrants and finding a path to legal status for those kids' parents often applaud themselves for holding the sensible middle ground on this issue. But they're wrong. As the Quinnipiac poll proves, the middle of the illegal immigration issue lies elsewhere.
AND THEN THERE'S the significance of the illegal immigration issue to a lot of people. When the topic of illegal immigration enters the conversation, it tends to drown out everything else. Anyone who was paying attention in June when the McCain/Kennedy debate reached a fever pitch would know that. Bizarrely, most members of Congress and the media decided to blame that firestorm on talk radio, simultaneously overestimating talk radio's ability to move the debate and underestimating the importance of this issue to the public.
As for Hillary, she effectively recovered from her Buckner-ing of the illegal immigration question in the last debate. It was easy. After all, she's among fellow Democrats, all of whom are just as bad or even worse than she is on illegal immigration.
But the general election will be a different story. She'll be facing a Republican nominee who is a hardliner on illegal immigration, something that will put him squarely in the middle of the electorate. Hillary may want to move rightward once she's got the nomination, but she can't. While the campaign is young, she's already had her "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it" moment.
The Republican nominee won't be reluctant to assail her on that fact. The Democrats had to pull their punches; while some of them may be against the drivers' license idiocy, they're all pro-amnesty and they all supported McCain/Kennedy. In other words, to amplify Broder's "iceberg" metaphor, all the Democrats can do is squabble about what quarters of the Titanic each candidate gets to occupy.
Dean Barnett is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
| © Copyright 2007, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved. |
--snip--
Here's another nugget from the Quinnipiac Ohio poll: 61 percent oppose giving a public school education to the children of illegal immigrants.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I don’t think we need all the restuarants we have. Home cooking?...family time?
America needs to grasp on to family, not purely focus on commerce. Money is hallow aspect of life, if one doesn’t have love.
Six foot five inches tall Fred Thompson will mop the floor with Mrs. Hillary Clinton. Both are lawyers, but how many cases has Hillary tried? How many has she prosecuted? How many crooked governors and presidents has she taken down? Ponder that for a moment. It’s no wonder the democrats fear Fred and hope that Mitt “Gay Marriage” Romney, Rudy “Drag Queen” Giuliani or Mike “Open Borders for Jesus” Huckabee get nominated.
This year's version of Kerry's Super-Secret Ultra-Cool Plan for Solving Iraq. (Which he still hasn't revealed.)
There's always an issue that pops up in an election that hits the candidates when they weren't expecting it. The dems, who have all the advantages going into the election cycle when it comes to winning the presidency, are willfully blind on this issue. They don't WANT it to be important, so they're trying the old Jedi mind trick and hoping the rest of us will go along.
This may be the issue that dooms them, though of course it's way too early to know for sure. If Hillary continues to look shaky (despite the embarrassingly obvious attempts by the media to shore her up), she may try to come down as a hawk on immigration, winking to the dem coalition of the needy to assure them she'll sign some nothing piece of legislation that looks good (Comprehensive Immigration Reform!) while doing nothing. But that may be one about-face too many.
“I don’t think we need all the restuarants we have. Home cooking?...family time?”
So absolutely true.
I think we are in trouble ......
hillary clinton, last debate, wanted, encouraged, supported, illegals getting drivers licenses. She received much flap. Oh, yes, hillary clinton was in BIG trouble.
Last night clinton was asked if she supported illegal getting drivers linceses and her response was ...NO!!
and this was after Obana gave his lengthy response that resulted in his yes being dragged out of him. Almost like he knew he had to say it, it was a set up and he had better respond correctly or .....
They all looked like fools.
But we are the ones being fooled!!!
Who are the we, and what are they being fooled about?
To anyone with a brain and a grasp of what’s going on around him, it has been evident for some time now (two years for me) that illegal immigration will be the defining issue in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections, unless the Republicans prevent it.
Unfortunately, in 2006 the Republicans in charge - Bush, Rove, McCain, Graham, Martinez, etc. - did prevent it, by their stupid suicide defense of amnesty which allowed the Democrats, who are totally enamored of amnesty and open borders and voter fraud, a free pass.
The people have now overwhelmingly spoken out on immigration - in Washington with the recent defeats of the Senate amnesty bill, of the Dream Act, of the AgJobs act; in states and localities (over a thousand so far) with ordinances and legislation cracking down on illegals, in high profile episodes like Spitzer’s NY drivers license retreat, and in local elections where immigration was the issue, like Hazleton PA and Prince William VA.
If you don’t live inside the Beltway, you know where the overwhelming sense of the majority lies, and it will even grow more as other issues with illegals at their core only worsen - subprime mortgage and banking collapses, medical costs, welfare costs, voter fraud, epidemics, and crime waves.
We know where Democrats stand - open borders, citizenship, voter rights.
But will Republicans stand for what is right (i.e., following the law) or will they continue the Bush-Rove-Graham-McCain-Martinez path on immigration.
Next year’s election will turn on that choice. Iraq will not be the central issue in 2008. If Republicans at the top continue with the open borders mantra, get ready for La Dona Hillary, Senora Presidente.
If the GOP is smart, it will make Illegal Immigration the focus of the next election. It should be Topic 1. The theme of the entire election strategy. And no politician should receive GOP campaing help whose position on illegal immigration is out of touch with that of the American people.
When asked, “When will the war end?”, the right answer is “When all the illegal immigrants have returned to their home countries.”
When asked, “What’s your solution to the healthcare problem?”, the right answer is “Take the burden off of our healthcare system by getting all illegal immigrants out of the country.”
The party's over if they do. Got your exit strategy?
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!
Unfortunately the RNC hasn’t grasped this yet and may not even want it in their heart of hearts. It’s just not certain we’ll get the candidates needed at all levels of government with the heartfelt conviction to turn back the incremental measures achieved by the Left and the GOP globalists in the last couple decades.
Four years ago I moved to NW Montana. Politically, I don’t see a place to go yet.
If Hillary is the next President, she may also be the last.
Yet Hunter and Tancredo remain last in the polls.
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