Replies

My take (FWIW): Arnold 'won' because he didn't seem stupid, he defended his positions, and he's getting most of the post-debate air time. Debates are often won by the analysis that follows and the air time given to one-liners.

OTOH, Tom's comments below - the only clear conservative position on these issues - could help him. Folks talking about how liberal CA is forget Prop 187 passed...

"MCCLINTOCK: I think you are all losing sight of a very important fact, and that is we are talking about families that are in this country in violation of our nation's immigration laws. Now this nation has the most generous immigration policies of any nation in the world. Illegal immigration undermines that process of legal immigration that's the strength of our nation, and there are millions of people who are willing to abide by our immigration laws to come to this nation, become Americans and see their children grow up and prosper as Americans. Illegal immigration is the process of cutting in line in front of them, and I don't believe we should be rewarding such behavior.

Illegal immigration is costing this country $4 billion in direct costs out of our treasury by the most conservative estimates available. We've got to make sure our immigration laws are enforced. I led the opposition to the measure on giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants because it undermines the enforcement of our immigration laws."

and

"...But, getting to the main point, and this is something that I think everyone has lost sight of, disadvantaged children come in all colors. It is their condition of disadvantage that we seek to compensate. It is not a question of race. Proposition 54, I believe I'm the only candidate on this platform who supports Proposition 54, simply says that our government has got to stop classifying us by race. It doesn't matter what race you are. The government should treat everyone exactly the same. And again, when you talk about disadvantage, it's the disadvantage itself that we should be correcting and compensating.

I think that this nation's best when we are all one race, an American race. And this business of government classifying us according to different ethnic groups, different racial categories, that is foreign to the whole concept of one great American people."

Am I the only one tired of racial politics? Am I the only one in CA to notice the problems illegal immigration brings with it? I think not.