Posted on 05/16/2002 5:43:47 PM PDT by Vallandigham
Analysis: Immigration headache for GOP
By Peter Roff
UPI National Political Analyst
May 15, 2002
WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- If there is one issue that threatens to split the president off from the activist base of the GOP, it's immigration.
George W. Bush has made outreach to the Latino community a central emphasis of his presidency. The first foreign head of state with whom he met was not, as recent tradition holds, the Canadian prime minister. Looking south, Bush met instead with Mexican President Vicente Fox, whom the current administration is working hard to support.
Sunbelt elements within the GOP are not at all comfortable with this strategy. Indeed, their efforts to address the issue go back farther then the current administration.
In recent years, they track back at least as far as former California Republican Gov. Pete Wilson's Proposition 187, a successful ballot initiative to stop illegal immigrants from receiving government benefits. In the years since its passage, and in spite of judicial injunctions delaying its enforcement, Prop. 187 has become political shorthand for portraying the Republicans as anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner.
The president and his political advisers, seeing the enormous and growing Latino population in key Electoral College states like California, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado, want to embrace these newest of Americans and woo them into the Republican voter bloc. The effort to soften the party's image on immigration is a big part of that as are efforts to transform large numbers of illegal immigrants currently in the United States to quasi if not actually legal ones. This has some conservatives seeing red.
The e-mail magazine and Web site GOPUSA, which wants to be "the first source Republicans and conservatives turn to for information," recently ran headlong into the GOP anti-immigration juggernaut.
GOPUSA asks visitors to its Web site to participate in online polls that, while having no value as a scientific measure, provide a window onto what the conservative political community may be thinking.
During the last week of April, participants were asked to identify the "defining issue" in the 2002 mid-term elections. The question was posted on Sunday morning, April 28, and stayed up until the following Saturday morning.
As of Friday night May 3, "the economy" was leading the list at 32 percent, followed by the "war on terror" at 23 percent. "Immigration" was third at 22 percent.
Then, according to Bobby Eberle, GOPUSA's founder and editor, things began to change.
"From Friday night until Saturday morning when the polls closed, hundreds of votes came in for 'immigration' although the wave of votes was clearly not the trend followed throughout the entire rest of the week," Eberle said in a note to subscribers, "I thought it only right to mention that based on the e-mails I received, this issue is of the utmost importance to a great many people across the country."
The activities of other groups seem to independently confirm Eberle's assessment.
On Monday, a conservative grassroots groups called Council for Government Reform e-mailed an "Urgent Action Needed" memo to supporters. The House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to vote the next day on adding "245(i)", a White House-backed illegal immigrant amnesty measure, to the Fiscal Year 2002 supplemental spending bill to provide additional money for the war against terrorism.
"Permanently extending the 245(i) provision is contradictory to its underlying goal of national security," the group says. "It not only allows potentially dangerous illegal aliens permanent access to our country, it also encourages more of them to come take advantage of us, while being unfair to all the legal immigrants who have followed the rules and patiently waited their turn."
The campaign may have worked. The amendment, offered by Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., was defeated 32 to 27.
The complaints about the national GOP's move toward a more open immigration policy are not confined to the grassroots.
In mid-April, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., the leader of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, was quoted in the Denver Post saying, "The president is not on our side" on the immigration issue.
The second-term member of the House, a frequent critic of immigration expansion, complained that the president supports an "open door" policy that Tancredo believes could lead to another terrorist attack. "Then the blood of the people killed will be on this administration and this Congress," he was quoted as saying.
There are those within the GOP coalition who support a more open immigration policy. These activists, largely libertarian in their leanings or focused on economic rather than social issues, see increased immigration as beneficial to U.S. long-term economic growth and job creation. They do not, however, carry the same weight as the vocal and powerful anti-immigration bloc within the president's party -- at least among the body politic. The more immigration-friendly view usually dominates on Capitol Hill but, as the fight against 245(i) demonstrates, the president may soon face a political crisis that could badly damage his relations with the party's activist base.
Copyright 2002 United Press International
I'm so sick and tired of this pandering I could puke!! It's not about America anymore - it's about which party gets the most votes and survives.
Bush and the RNC won't get one minute of my time or one penny of my money this go around - you can bet the farm on that!!
Actually, there are a few issues that may split the Presient from the "activist base" and the 'political analyst' author should have a done a better job.
When we look at the major legislation passed....the education bill, the abomination that is the farm bill, and the other proposals to increase the size and cost of government, I painfully conclude that GWB is basically a decent, honest, moral Bill Clinton.
He has done some good things, and is superior in foreign policy of course, but overall he is doing whatever he thinks is needed to preserve his personal chances of re-election. I'm certainly not excited about voting for him again.
Having said this, if he can really privatize social security, that would be a great achievement with long enduring benefits and I would be satisfied, if not completely happy.
We shall see.
All I can say is this country is in for one hell of a ride if what's going on continues.
What part of this is too difficult for you to comprehend?
If you get votes and win elections, but pretty much do what the others guys would, then what is the point, at least for those who voted for you?
You beat me to that reply. Exactly Right!
There's a Headache for them, and it comes from not having Principals. Compromise is fine when basic Principals are NOT at stake. How many times can they be compromised before there is no difference in Parties? We're there now.
On top of that, there's something called the rule of law. We should not be in the business of rewarding illegal behavior.
"And what exactly has Bush done since he's been in office to advance the conservative movement?"
GWB killed the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, for one.
GWB pulled the U.S. out of the CCCP-U.S. ABM Treaty, for another.
GWB backed and got our National Missile Defense program funded.
GWB Killed the International Criminal Court.
GWB repealed Clinton's CO2 rules that were choking off electricity production in California and causing electricity rates to spike.
GWB repealed OSHA's new ergonomic regulations that were about to put every home-based business in America out of commission.
GWB appointed Ashcroft and Ted Olsen, who just wrote to the Supreme Court that the 2nd Amendment is an INDIVIDUAL right, not the "collective right" that liberals have maintained for decades.
GWB signed the bill into law that gives pilots the right to arm themselves with firearms, a pleasant pro-gun victory on a national level.
GWB killed the Left-Wing ABA's role in vetting federal judges for Congress.
GWB instituted the first top-down review of our military in years, which concluded (prior to 9/11), that asymmetric attacks were our biggest future threat.
GWB killed the $11 Billion Crusader artillery boondoggle.
GWB killed federal funding of foreign "family planning" activities.
GWB ordered the Justice Department to finally enforce the SCOTUS Beck decision, giving union workers the right to recover any of their union dues that are used for political purposes with which they disagree.
Frankly, if you aren't aware of all that GWB has done to advance the Conservative movement (including implementing steel tariffs in order to encourage European nationalism via trade wars), then you simply aren't Conservative.
Only a liberal could be so blind as to not realize what all GWB has done for our cause (oh, did I mention that GWB got taxes cut twice, once for individuals and another for businesses).
http://bulldogbulletin.lhhosting.com/page36.htm
And quite frankly, it's pretty darn good, all things considered. Given the fact we are fighting a war, and the fact we have obsrtuctionist left-wingnut Dems running the Senate, it's pretty darn good.
Why throw the baby out with the bathwater? Why not instead just toss the Dems out and get a good Senate elected so we don't have to cut so many deals?
I won this election and ended up with Jorge Boosh and his co-president Vicente Fox.
I learned a long time ago not to touch a bare wire twice.
So whatever you feel that Bush & Co has done is just Sooo Bad that you would prefer Clinton and Reno instead.
This kind of Propaganda is how Perot was able to get Clinton elected in the first place.
If we really, really, really wanted to, we could remove illegals. The US government doesn't miss a trick when someone is $1.00 off on their income taxes, if they wanted to find and deport illegals they could do it. Anyone who thinks otherwise is the one not living in the real world.
Or the "October Surprise?"
Or Iran-Contra?
Or "the photo"?
The media will be all over the massive deportation effort of 10-15 million illegals. They'll make it look like the second coming of the holocaust.
Do you REALLY think they won't do that?
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