Illegal immigration wasn’t even an issue in 2000 or 2004. Now, it is becoming the issue for Romney and Giuliani to fight over. McCain’s “comprehensive” proposal is one of the factors that will sink him on Super Tuesday.
On the Democratic side, a proposal to give illegals drivers licenses has capsized Eliot Spitzer in Albany; Hillary’s recent slide started when she failed to blast the Spitzer proposal. Obama supported the McCain comprehensive reform, which, given the climate of the present GOP race, will be used as a cudgel against him in the general– or at least as a wedge to peel off the moderates and independents.
The problem for Democrats is that, barring some new disaster in Iraq, illegal immigration has thus far gained far more traction as a hot-button isssue than Edward’s greedy corporations. The “progressive” position– as demonstrated by Spitzer, and Hillary’s unwillingness to take a shot at Spitzer– seems like it poses some serious problems in the vote-garnering department.
The problem for both parties is that positions on illegal immigration cut across party lines. Progressive vs. Lou Dobbs Democrats; business vs. social conservatives. This introduces an element of uncertainty into the election, as the candidates try to finesse and duck an issue upon which most voters have a strong opinion.
Here is my prediction for 2008: illegal immigration will be a bigger issue than the readers of this site would like. That makes Tom Tancredo the most successful candidate thus far, because without his efforts, this issue would be no more an issue than it was in 1996, 2000, or 2004.
My compromise on this issue is simple: less illegal immigration, punctuated by stronger enforcement against employers and illegal immigrants, all in return for more, and more fair, legal immigration. Fat chance of that coming about.
Tancredo was very successful, but limited in scope. Social Security, highway infrastructure, etc., were not of interest to him. Ironically, had he backed Duncan Hunter instead of running himself, you might have seen a different top tier – they are equally concerned about the issue, but Hunter is less one dimensional.
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p>But, he left politely and endorsed the candidate he feels has the best chance of keeping the conservative issues he cares about in the spotlight. We won’t say who that was, as it is combustible on BMG….
“That makes Tom Tancredo the most successful candidate thus far, because without his efforts, this issue would be no more an issue than it was in 1996, 2000, or 2004.”
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p>I’m not convinced that without TT this issue wouldn’t be big. There are whole swaths of the GOP fanning this issue and the leadership likes it that way because gays may not play as big in 2008. Actual evidence being out there about the world not ending in Massachusetts kind of undercuts the momentum on that issue and they know it. The GOP game plan during election time has always been to find an issue to get people pissed off about. The Mexicans just drew the short straw this year. This is because since most of the actual GOP policies poll very poorly over the entire populace it becomes that much more important to motivate people on some magic bullet issue that will get enough of their base out on election night while simultaneously get people to forget about all those other policies.
Tancredo has been ranting aobut this for about three years. Personally, I think our border with Canada is a bigger threat – virtually unenforced, and that IS where every terrorist to date has crossed over, even the guys who tried to bomb Ft. Dix.
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p>There are two issues at play here = security/terrorism, and the lunch bucket Democrats and small business Republicans like plumbers and roofers who are upset at being continually underbid. This isn’t really a racist issue – on Cape, we have primarily illegal Brazillians, and H2B Bulgarians and Russians = all depress wages.
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p>This is really much more an economic issue than a social justice one. And really – I remember last May, when Mitt was in Iowa, he was asked what the biggest surpriese was in the questions he was being asked. He replied that he was amazed at the concern FROM PEOPLE, NOT INCULCATED, about illegal immigration. He said that he had mentally pictured Iowa at the dead center of the country, and less likely than anyone to be affected. He has assumed that because we are a northeastern, coastal state it was more of an issue for us than the heartland. Ain’t so – they are angry, too.
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p>I’m not sure how your first sentence relates to the rest of your comment. Surely there is a security/terrorism component, but thats not what drives the emotional pissed off response that the GOP is riding. Surely its been a local issue for a long long time, but when the minutemen started making national news with their circus act, the GOP took notice on how it was playing. Once the collective GOP subconscious grabbed hold of the issue, it became obvious that the GOP had their gay marriage issue for 2008.
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p>I agree about it being an economic issue in terms of what it actually is, but it’s playing out on the front lines much much uglier than an economic issue. Frankly the price of steel probably has more affect on our GDP. The actual size of this problem, both economically and as a security issue, is dwarfed by the sheer room it takes up in the current GOP zeitgeist. Since it motivates the masses to come out and blinds them to much more important issues, the GOP leadership is just fine with it. Republicans that really want to help the country with their leadership would find those other more important issues. They aren’t because whipping up passions on a smaller issue without much real impact relevance is much much too convenient for them.
As Mr Lynne is so ably arguing, the Republicans were having fainting spells over immigration long before Tancredo (and Hunter) got involved. This was the latest menace for them to bravely speechify against.
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p>On the other hand, you have Ron Paul, who’s gone from nothing — no natural base, no fundraising base, the active loathing of Republican officialdom — to a likely top-4 in New Hampshire and Iowa. I think the fact that Rep. Paul is now targeted by Fox News, who has committed to keeping him out of the crucial debate between Iowa and New Hampshire, explains just how successful he’s been. From zero to outpacing Giuliani is pretty darn good.
… has one natural base: true believer libertarians. A lot of credit has to go to his campaign too. I think his ideas are completely loony, but he has a lot of integrity to buck his party’s system and interests in favor of his principals.
Your and Mr. Lynn’s response seem to indicate that illegal immigartion is an issue only because of nefarious Republican manipulations.
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p>I think it has been a simmering issue for many, many years–I only said that it had not made an appearance at the leval of a Presidential campaign in 2000 and 2004. I think that the trip from simmering to boiling is largely a result of the efforts of AmberPaw’s least favorite Congressman.
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p>I think that the issue of illegal immigration fits a pattern in which a problem slowly emerges over time until it is manifestly obvious to everyone, but is studiously ignored by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party because it does not fit the agenda. At some point reform happens in a burst, and entirely outside the control of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which then howls about the injustice of it all.
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p>The issues that fit this pattern are not the “culture war” issues, like abortion or gay marriage, that rile the religious conservatives of the GOP, which more accurately fit the paradigm that you are suggesting. Instead, I think that illegal immigation is a sort of issue that affects the pocketbook of non-ideological America, and therefore ripens into a hot button issue during a campaign.
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p>Overtaxation in the late 70s and early 80s, leading to the Reagan tax cuts. The failed AFDC welfare system in the 1990s, leading to the 1996 Welfare Reform. I expected urban public education to be the next of these issues that wind up with successful reform over the opposition of “progressives,” but it seems that illegal immigration is heating up first.
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p>In any event, if the Democrats (and I don’t think they are doing this, thank goodness) take the position this issue is a mere figment conjured by the mystical political powers of the GOP, then they will once again deserve their fate.
… “…it has been a simmering issue for many, many years–…”
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p>I also agree that “…it had not made an appearance at the leval of a Presidential campaign in 2000 and 2004.”
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p>I think the burst of the issue has some design behind it. The actual impact of the issue is far far less than the level of rhetoric being spouted about. The question is ‘why?’. I assert that the disparity is because the flames have been fanned and the reason is because it is useful for some to do so electorally. The ‘some’ in question is the GOP and the reason it is useful I have outlined before.
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p>Sure it is an issue, its just not the juggernaut end all be all that you’d think from the rhetoric in terms of its consequences. Sure it impacts “… the pocketbook of non-ideological America…”, just not as much as say the AMT or NAFTA or the mortgage crisis or wealth bifrication or tax policy. Actually… substitute ‘not as much’ with ‘not even close to’. The fact that these more impactful issues get by without even a tenth of the rhetoric is indicative that people are being played. Flag burning was a culture war issue too. Not quite as irrelevant but you get the point.
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p>Relevant and important issues are what we should be demanding the candidates talk about. We should be pissed off that they are not talked about in favor of the emotionally charged (at least for most of the right) but relatively unimportant immigration issue. The other issues you bring up in your second to last paragraph (although I disagree with your coloring of them) have a much greater impact on the country. A campaign that stressed those issues would not be accused of making a mountain out of a mole hill. Immigration?.. not so much.
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p>If nothing changed on immigration policy for the next 4 years imagine the results. Now imagine that the AMT doesn’t get addressed. No contest.
But, if you re-read your comment, I am fairly certain that your position is that voters who do not share your list of priorities are “being played for suckers.” This sort of attitude does not correlate positively with electoral success.
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p>And I think the immigration issue hits a lot harder than you think, at least for those employed in a trade. Not to mention those with kids in public schools in which an awful lot of the meagre resources are consumed by “language learners.”
… that find unimipactful issues so important that they are willing to vote based on them are able to be played, if the flames are fanned. While there certainly is some subjectivity of the relative wight of specific issues, there is less subjectivity on the impact of the same issues. Playing to subjectively important (and impassioned) issues at the expense of more impactful issues. I can’t really blame the GOP though. After all, the polling on GOP policy platforms is clear. They are, as usual, in need of a distraction.
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p>Also, I never said the issue wasn’t ‘hard’. I myself haven’t fully formed my response to the issue, on account of its complexity. I just said on the grand scheme of things it isn’t as important as so many other things we should be looking at and the mass it as gained as an issue is unjustified except as a tactic to distract.
I guess our only disagreement is that this is a “distraction.” I don’t think it should be shocking to anyone that illegal immigration is heating up as an issue just as the economy is cooling down, with a reasonable liklihood of going cold.
1) there really are more important issues out there in terms of the magnitude of the effect on the ‘average American’ than immigration. and;
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p>2) people really are missing out on those issues while concentrating on immigration, then;
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p>- It really is a distraction.
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p>If
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p>1) It is a distraction, and;
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p>2) The reason so much attention is being paid to the issue is because it is being played up as the latest thing to get mad about, then;
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p>- The people doing the playing up are distracting the voters.
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p>If
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p>1) There really are bigger reasons for an economic slump than immigration, and;
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p>2) Those issues are not being talked about, then;
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p>- We really are being played for suckers.
…
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p>If
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p>1) There really are bigger reasons for an economic slump than immigration, and;
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p>2) Those bigger reasons can be said to be the result of GOP policies. and;
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p>3) Those issues are not being talked about because the GOP is playing up a less important issue that they can’t be ‘blamed’ for, then;
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p>- We really are being played for suckers.
…please, define ‘important’. ‘Bigger’.
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p>Small business people know that if the war in Iraq ended tomorrow, and Osama bin Laden slapped himself on the forehead and said, ‘WHAT was I thinking? PLEASE, let me go to Tel Aviv and ask forgiveness!’ – there would be no massive govenrment program to alleviate their problems, just like there wasn’t in the LAST ‘peace dividend’.
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p>The have boards of health, OSHA, IRS, DOR, and the rest of the government alphabet soup on their backs on a daily basis. They play by the rules as best they can. Please do not patronize their fury over the government refusing to act about others who do not play by the rules, and come here illegally and export their earnings to their home ountry – not investing and reinvesting here like their immigrant parents and grandparent did.
… more impact over the whole populace’s economic well being. Need an example? Leave the AMT alone and watch what happens. Keep current spending on the black hole known as Iraq and see what happens. Leave immigration alone and see what happens.
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p>Individual mileage, of course, always varies. But the level of rhetoric inflates its perceived impact over the whole populace.
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p>PS. Your own last statement could be construed to conclude that regulation might in fact be one of those ‘bigger’ issue… even for the small business.
People don’t view the world from 30,000 feet. They view it from their own eyes.
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p>30,000 feet: The economy is in precarious position because of a wide ranging contraction in liquidity resulting from the tightening of credit. This tightening began, but has expanded beyond, subprime lending in residential mortgages, and now inlcudes ordinary ARMS and fixed rate mortgages, and, much more significantly, business trade credit and inter-bank lending. These things “can be said to be the result of GOP policies” but only to the extent that partisan politicians take credit for every good thing and pass the buck for every bad thing, always.
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p>This is neither a Republican nor a Democratic thing, except to the extent that unwise borrowing was encouraged by both Republicans and Democrats.
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p>Now, the person employed in a trade sees hard times ahead. Is he going to vote on the need to adjust monetary policy in such a way as to add liquidity to the economy, while simultraneously forcing bad loans to be written down, or will he vote based on the imminent threat that someone working under the table is likely going to cause him financial harm by doing the same job for less?
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p>And you would say to this person, well, you are stupid.
… there are x people affected by an issue but what you have x times 100 in the amount of rhetoric going around.
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p>The GOP has been well known for disliking oversight regulations for business (especially financial) institutions. They overrode Clinton’s veto on accounting practices. The result was Enron (or more specifically Arthur Anderson).
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p>”…partisan politicians take credit for every good thing and pass the buck for every bad thing, always.”
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p>If you take no lesson away from the last eight (or 20) years take this: policy choices have consequences. Although the games they play about credit and blame are games, its still true that what politicians do does matter
… hasn’t changed much in a long long time. We’ve had booms and now we are having busts. Its wise of the GOP to start looking for scapegoats because the policy decisions behind our current woes are clear in terms of where they came from.
Hardwood floor crews. There are a number of Vietamese crews that are able to undercut local crews by several dollars per hour.
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p>Roofing. There are large and illegal Brazilian crews that will undercut any local roofer by 10 to 20 percent.
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p>Landscaping. Ask Mr. Romney.
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p>Framers, plasterers, drywall, painters…any labour intensive aspect of construction is rife with illegal aliens and employers who don’t mind hiring them because doing so saves Workers comp, wages, SS, Medicare and unemployment.
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p>Look outside the construction industry and think of any labour intense industry: nursing home caregivers, restaurants, nail technicians, moving and hauling…rife with illegal aliens willing to work cheap.
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p>So, did immigration cause the current economic downturn? Probably not, but the abundance of cheap labour worldwide did–indirectly–cause it. The abundance of cheap labour led to the abundance of money which led to low interest rates. Low rates caused a housing boom which bubbled and burst, and it’ll take some time to absorb the excess houses.
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p>You seem to intimate that GOP policy caused the current downturn. Bunk! That’s rediculous.
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p>Then ask yourself, how to address this cheap worldwide labor including the cheap labour within our borders? The Dem answer is to raise the minimum wage, thereby making it MORE attractive ($$) to hire illegal aliens.
… never have said that it isn’t a problem. What I said was that the magnitude of the problem is dwarfed by the magnitude of the attention it’s getting and that the coverage of other issues of more magnitude suffer because of it.
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p>As to your last paragraph, there is no single solution monolithically chanted by “the dems” any more than there is a single solution monolithically chanted by the GOP. But feel free to distort a complex issue with a simple black and white world view all you want.
here
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p>
… on the Iraq war every month?
…, lest I be misunderstood, I agree that the issue could or will play very large in the campaign. I’m saying its a shame if it does because it means we are being successfully played for suckers.