The Command Post
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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:

  • The media. They smear those who oppose illegal immigration as "nativists", they write editorials supporting illegal aliens taking education dollars from U.S. citizens, they publish "pro-illegal immigration puff pieces", they ignore the elephant in the room, and on and on.
  • Big business: banks, growers, money transfer companies, sweatshop operators, etc. etc. It's all about the "cheap" labor and the new consumers.
  • The Ethnic Industry. All of these are far-left, and many are quite simply anti-American. It includes college professors, politicians trying to increase their power by bringing in new constituents of the same race, and "grassroots" organizations like MALDEF, NCLR, and LULAC. Believe it or not, behind many of these groups you'll find Ford Foundation money. For instance, UCLA published a "study" advocating voting rights for illegal aliens. The school at UCLA it came from was founded by the Ford Foundation, and the "study" was written by a former president of MALDEF. MALDEF had been more or less created out of whole cloth by the Ford Foundation. (On the other side, 47% of Arizona Hispanics voted for Prop. 200)
  • Immigration lawyers. Here's a tangible example involving Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT). After reading about his funding, see this.
  • The government of Mexico. Partial control of our immigration system has been turned over to a foreign government; what Mexico wants is apparently more important than what American citizens want. For its part, Mexico receives almost as much from remittances (money sent home from workers in the U.S.) as it does from oil; remittances are Mexico's second greatest source of income. Even if someone is ignorant of our history with Mexico, it should come as no surprise that they claim part of our population as their own, they threaten us with civil unrest if they don't get their way, their agents criss-cross the U.S. selling ID cards to their citizens despite many or most of the recipients being here illegally and despite the FBI calling those ID cards a terrorist threat, and they are allowed to or encouraged to meddle in our laws.
  • Non-corrupt ideologues. A small percentage of Americans support illegal immigration despite not being paid to do so. Almost all of them are far- or very far-left. For a small example, see the comments here (especially those by 'm berst') or see this thread. Some libertarians support Open Borders, but even Michael Badnarik opposes illegal immigration despite supporting massive legal immigration.

What about the other side of the ledger?

Here's who Hillary would get support from:

  • The 75% of the American public who support a reduction of illegal immigration. (Pew PDF)

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:
* The 75% of the American public who support a reduction of illegal immigration.

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 [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 26, 2004 06:49 PM

We'll have some serious breech of security along our Mexican border long before the 2008 season is upon us.

Still, it wouldn't be enough to offer Hillary's campaign any 'boost'. Too many people know her for who she is, not who she claims to be. And as far as immigration is concerned, since when are Illini considered New Yorkers?

Posted by: torpedo_eight [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 26, 2004 10:40 PM

Hillary’s “tough” immigration policy could be easily neutralized by a Republican campaigning on an equally tough, or tougher, policy.

Those who run the GOP will no doubt try to en$ure that $omeone who like$ immigrant$ run$.

Posted by: Lonewacko [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 26, 2004 11:23 PM


This also presumes that the current status quo still exists in 2008. Bush's decision to focus on the issue and implement the fundemental reforms that the system has been screaming for all these years means that it's just as likely that any immigration issues that may exist in 2008 won't resemble the issues of today.

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 27, 2004 10:26 AM

Yes, under Bush's leadership 2008 will no doubt be quite different from 2004.

Corrupt foreign governments that have become reliant on sending us their excess populations will have sent us millions more people and become even more reliant on remittances. Businesses that rely on "cheap" labor will have passed even more of the true cost of that "cheap" labor on to the rest of us.

The Race Industry will be stronger still, and racial demagogues will have consolidated and expanded their power.

Whoever thought it would be a "conservative" Republican that would help build Aztlan?

-- BigMediaBlog.com (aka Lonewacko)

Posted by: BigMediaBlog [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 27, 2004 03:29 PM



Whoever thought it would be a “conservative” Republican that would help build Aztlan?

To some, the term "conservative" doesn't mean "racialist mercantilism."

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 27, 2004 04:27 PM

Lonewacko - Just curious, do the books that provide your scenarios have pictures to color?

Posted by: torpedo_eight [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 27, 2004 10:31 PM

Hm. In that long list, I didn't see entries for:

-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;

-right-wingers who believe that the current game of "let's pretend that there's a lot less immigration from Latin America then there really is" is foolish and dangerous;

-right-wingers who don't believe they should have to pay top-dollar for baby-sitting, painting, gardening, or any other service just because of government red tape; and

-right-wingers who recognize that illegal immigrants pay lots of money in taxes and contribute significantly to the economies of border states (and, increasingly, non-border states).

Posted by: Attila Girl [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 29, 2004 02:16 AM

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

Who picks up the tab for that wonderful libertarian paradise? Who pays for your "cheap" labor?

If you had to pay the true price for your cheap gardener instead of passing the cost off on the rest of us, you'd probably consider learning how to mow your own lawn.

Posted by: BigMediaBlog [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 29, 2004 07:49 PM

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