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November 26, 2004
Hillary's stealth issue for '08
NewsMax offers a roundup of Hillary being to the "right" of Bush on immigration matters: "Hillary Eyeing Immigration as Top 2008 Issue". There's no outright statement from her saying if she ran she'd make it a key part of her campaign, but some of the things she's said might make people think she's got that in mind. If she makes reducing illegal immigration a key part of her campaign, who would support her and who would oppose her? On the opposition side would be the de facto left-right alliance that supports massive legal immigration and massive illegal immigration. You can see this alliance at work in the opposition to Arizona's Prop. 200 or in the categorized list of the 400 companies and organizations that support the AgJobs amnesty program. The members of this alliance include:
What about the other side of the ledger? Here's who Hillary would get support from:
If handled correctly, I think she'd find that the support would far outweigh the opposition, despite the opposition's clout. For every member of the far left she lost, she'd gain at least one and probably more from the center or the right. In the words of the Sacramento Bee's Daniel Weintraub: I wouldn't be surprised if immigration became a major issue again, and it will happen overnight if we are attacked by terrorists who are found to have entered the country through the Mexican border. Right now both parties are reluctant to address it. The Democrats seem to believe that illegal immigration is really no different from legal immigration, and the Republicans are afraid that if they focus on it, they will suffer a backlash from Latino voters, as they did in the 1990s. I have always thought that a leader willing to take a calm, rationale look at illegal immigration while lauding legal immigrants would do fine. Seems to me that illegal immigrants hurt legal immigrants by "cutting in line" in front of those who are waiting and by bidding down wages in the entry level jobs that many legal immigrants hold as they try to climb up the economic ladder. Handled carefully, this should be an issue that appeals across party lines.Posted By The Lonewacko Blog at November 26, 2004 03:16 PM | TrackBack Comments
Here’s who Hillary would get support from: That's making the awfully large assumption that these are all single-issue voters. They're not. Many of the red staters who favor a tougher immigration stance would oppose Hillary on almost every other issue, from abortion to affirmative action to taxation to her well-documented loathing of our troops and the military. It also seems to make the assumption that the GOP nominee will have a position on immigration identical to Bush. I see no reason to assume that. Hillary's "tough" immigration policy could be easily neutralized by a Republican campaigning on an equally tough, or tougher, policy. Now, if terrorists cross the border from Mexico and carry out an attack, then pretty much everyone becomes a single-issue voter, and it will be a matter of who can articluate the toughest position on immigration. I'd put my money on a Republican in that fight, too. Posted by: Etouffee We'll have some serious breech of security along our Mexican border long before the 2008 season is upon us.
Posted by: torpedo_eight Hillary’s “tough” immigration policy could be easily neutralized by a Republican campaigning on an equally tough, or tougher, policy.
Posted by: Lonewacko
Posted by: jackson zed Yes, under Bush's leadership 2008 will no doubt be quite different from 2004.
Posted by: BigMediaBlog
Posted by: jackson zed Lonewacko - Just curious, do the books that provide your scenarios have pictures to color? Posted by: torpedo_eight Hm. In that long list, I didn't see entries for:
Posted by: Attila Girl right-wingers who actually believe that if there is a willing seller of labor and a willing buyer of labor, their respective governments should erect as few barriers as possible to this transaction
Posted by: BigMediaBlog Post a comment
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