Posted on 12/09/2007 4:55:31 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
How is it Huckabee and McCain are doing so well in the polls? How are any of the Democrat canidates even in the race if this is "THE 100 ton elephent" for 2008? Why are the candidate who are weak on immigration doing the best? Why are the same people who insist they are upset about Illegal Immigration NOT putting their votes where their mouths are?
You all keep saying Illegal Immigration is the “100 ton elephant” and “2008 is all about the Illegals”. Then I look around at the candidates and the current polling data and none of the candidate who are doing well are serious about Illegal Immigration. The candidates who are serious about Illegals are no where winning right now.
So looking at it empirically, I have to draw one of these conclusions. Most of these conclusions are completely at odds with what is said here on this website.
A. People are bothered by the Illegals but not upset about it to change their voting habits. Other issues are more important to them.
B. Like bad weather or gas prices, people are bothered by the Illegals because they keep hearing in the media they are suppose to be upset about the issue but actually, in their day to day lives, don't really care about them and so are not changing their voting habits. C. Outside of activitst, average people aren't really all that upset about the Illegals. D People are still not paying attention enough to figure out just how weak some of these canidates are on Illegal Immigration E. The polling data is serious screwed up and there is a huge surprise coming in a few weeks in Iowa. Like I said, I cannot get my head around how their can be so much passion expressed on the Illegals issue and so little action being taken by people to make an impact on how the the politicans are treating the issue. The disparity between where the retoric is, and where the actions are, are just too great for me to get my head around.
A very articulate, reasoned response. Well done.
A significant minority of people are single-issue anti-immigration voters. They will not vote for a McCain - or Huckabee, if they knew what he believed.
A much larger section is opposed to illegal immigration in some degree. Like abortion, taxes, and Iraq, it is AN issue to consider.
If the first makes up 10%, the second category makes up 50+%. They are not comfortable with it, but are not vehemently opposed either.
Add in some for media dishonesty as well. Here in Pima County, Arizona, the anti-illegal immigrant republican (GRAF) was portrayed as someone who would break down doors, rape an illegal immigrant and THEN deport her husband. Since the NRC refused to give him a penny, and in fact tried to fund his opponent in the primary, it was a tough image to overcome.
NO ONE gets 100% of what they want out of politics. So what are you 100%er Purists willing to give up to get some good SC Justices? Some serious tax reform? A serious energy policy? Someone who will do something about the border? Movement on Soc Security reform etc etc etc?
What I am hearing around here is you people think everything should be done to accommodate your personal political whimsies while you should have to give up nothing at all that you want done in exchange.
Sorry politics require the ability to build wining coalitions. Listening to some people on this thread it is obvious you have no desire to ever actually win anything. You merely want to have something to bitch about. The 2nd any candidate actually addresses your concerns, you manufacture the new thing to bitch endlessly about.
Not even Ronald Mangus Reagan would of been able to delivered to you 100%ers what you are screaming for. That is why no one in politics takes you screamers seriously. All you ever do is bitch about what ever they do, why should they try to please any of you when you give every impression of being completely unappeasable?
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- That President was Ronald Reagan. So not even the greatest President of the 20th Century could measure up to standard being demanded by the purist Freepers
Nothing in life is ever perfect. Adult minds accept that and fight like heck to see as much as possible of what they want done gets done. Childish minds, and certain pseudo Conservative talking heads, whine hysterically because their political glass is only 70% full. All the time, by their actions, they are working very hard to make sure their political glass will NEVER get any fuller.
I like Fred, Mitt as first choices. Absent either one, I will support Rudy and in my mind he is nothing like her.
My hope is that people are not static.I suggest that we all evolve.I think it's possible for Rudy to manage NYC one way and the US govt. completely differently.
Hopefully events like 911 have improved the Rudy's of the world(at least some of them) into believing that US security is of major import and that is in the interest of the US to secure borders, quell illegal immigration and do the right things in so many areas of governance.
All that may make me just another naive voter, but absent my two top picks Rudy may be what I am stuck with.
Several amnesty type bills have already been tried and failed and the more the topic is broached to the public the more outrage there is.
I salute our media for doing the best it can on the issue but the msm/dbm has not yet self destructed yet to the point where we can totally ignore them.
That being said,it's pretty obvious the slant they have in treating the issue. Illegals good, law and order types bad, how else can you explain Ramos and Compean still in jail.
Truth is John you may not be looking at all sides on this particular issue.
This is pretty basic, both sides of our politicos have decided to ignore federal immigration laws and the voters, while they may not be marching in the streets, are not happy about it.
When will it become a bigger issue than it is, I really don't know but sometime before Nov of 08 for sure.
Phony strawman. No one is calling for ideological purity. Reagan made mistakes. He made a major error in granting a "one-time" amnesty and Ed Meese has even said so. Should we support a candidate who wants to make the same mistake again, only on a much grander scale? The USG estimated in 1986 that one million people would apply for amnesty. The real number turned out to be 3 million. Just 21 years later, the USG estimates that there are now 13 million illegal aliens. Amnesty doesn't work.
Nothing in life is ever perfect. Adult minds accept that and fight like heck to see as much as possible of what they want done gets done. Childish minds, and certain pseudo Conservative talking heads, whine hysterically because their political glass is only 70% full. All the time, by their actions, they are working very hard to make sure their political glass will NEVER get any fuller.
No one is demanding perfection. As far as immigration is concerned, we have an issue that transcends partisan politics. The future of the country is at stake. Using such words as childish, hysterical, pseudo, whine, etc. to describe those who don't agree with you adds nothing to the dialogue. Rove, Lindsay Graham, et. al., called us nativists and bigots. Sacrificing the future of this country on the altar of political expediency is something that many of us cannot condone. Some things are not negotiable or subject to compromise.
Tonight at 7 PM on Univision, we will see how far each of the GOP candidates is willing to go to pander to the audience.
This is an attitude I'd adopt after all is lost. Hoping that it won't be as bad as we know it will be.
Our only chance to turn this around lies in standing firm for those ideas and principles, to fight the battle of ideas regardless of what partisan pressures are brought to bear.
That's what the primaries are for...to determine which principals (candidates) carry the day for us. The all or nothing stance works in the primaries, but we'd damn well better drop our differences for the general election. We (you) can fight to change them in the next go around IF you have enough support.
. I understand this and really don't expect it.
But when you have a blatant issue of both sides ignoring federal law, terror types, druggies and the rest coming across the border and all the other things associated with illegal immigration,I think the compromises made need to be small and the basic need secure the border needs to be overriding.
Sorry, Ronald Reagan was the Greatest President ever, even if he did have to address immigration realistically.
Pray for W and Our Victorious Troops
I find this statement mind-boggling. Once one has determined that something terrible WILL be, refusing to attempt to prevent it and trusting in hope that it WON'T BE is simply irrational.
The all or nothing stance works in the primaries, but we'd damn well better drop our differences for the general election.
Once you've told the party establishment you'll support their designated candidate no matter what, their interest in you, and your influence on them is zero. It is curious that the pressure to compromise principles and jump on the approved bandwagon is always uni-directional and always points to "deferring" to the party leadership. Compromise is never in the other direction.
In the event she loses the nomination or the general election, my guess is that she will remain in her lifetime "appointment" to the US Senate next to all the other lifers there.
One scary thought is that she could choose to take over the Joe Biden spot on the weekly Sunday morning shows. I suppose she could also be the new Teddy Kennedy; voice of liberal morality.
As a distinguished loser of a presidential campaign, her career paths would be limited only by her ability to use being "Mrs. Clinton" on her road to feminist history-making.
However, we just bought a large screen tv last week, and my son and eye just had a marathon viewing of the entire Lord of the Rings, Extended Editions, and it left me glum.
Due to the unceasing sniping of the DBM-Leftist Alliance, the conservative government of Australia has fallen. I think the USA is next.
We must fight them now, if we're going to succeed in bring Radical Islam under control, or it will devour us in our weakness. Whatever the President thinks, I wonder if he realizes the extent of EVIL that the LEFT is in this world, in its blind lust to regain power?
I am not comfortable with the Left having their way with setting the agenda. Think about how different things would be if the idiocy of L'affair de Plame, Abu Grahb, Katrina, and a thousand other points of nonsense hadn't been used to successfully pillorize the President in his efforts to protect us.
I'd rather have a safer world than political power, but it can't be done. We have to win here at home before we can win in the world. And winning here at home means knocking the Left out politically. Not "silently suffering" them. JMHO.
Let’s put it this way: we have a global command center in Doha, Qatar. That tells us how close of an ally Qatar is.
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If Russert had ever opened his eyes and ears to anything Secretary Rice has said, or if he had had her on his show half as many times as he had Maddy Albright, he would know that Qatat is an ally.
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