Y is for Yahoo
Y is for Yihoo The House Caucus to Return the Republican Party to Minority Status—also known as the House Immigration Reform Caucus—held a press conference Thursday. The GOP solons were upset. The...
...William Kristol...
...Let's not talk about substance—since the pro-immigration forces have in fact been winning that debate easily...
...How many Republicans will have the courage to stand up and prevent the yahoos from driving the party off a cliff...
...In a Pew Survey released last week, 52 percent of Americans saw immigration as a burden, while 41 percent said it strengthened the country...
...King was able to outspend his challenger 10-1, while Bush faced a huge Kerry effort in that swing state...
...Last fall, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Jerry Kilgore, tried to exploit illegal immigration by denouncing a local community that wanted to build a shelter that might accommodate some illegals...
...Mike DeWine, elected and reelected in swing state Ohio...
...Okay...
...In any case, it means GOP senators and congressmen—and presidents—have plenty of room to show leadership and to resist demagoguery...
...John McCain, lead sponsor of a bill that resembles the Senate Judiciary Committee bill, has a pretty impressive electoral record in Arizona, a competitive state that also happens to border Mexico...
...In California, Republican governor Pete Wilson exploited the immigration issue to help get reelected in 1994, and the voters passed a Republican-backed anti-immigration measure, proposition 187...
...The committee had reported out a sensible and comprehensive immigration bill that includes border security measures, a guest worker program, and, for illegal immigrants already here, a path towards earned legalization and citizenship...
...Meanwhile, in the safe fifth district of Iowa, Steve King did run three points ahead of George W. Bush in 2004...
...But in Tancredo's state, the GOP did miserably in 2004, with Democrat Ken Salazar winning the Senate seat and Democrats gaining control of both houses of the legislature...
...Given the hoopla about illegal immigration, this division is in fact surprisingly close...
...George W. Bush, a pro-immigration Republican, has won two presidential elections—as did another pro-immigration Republican, Ronald Reagan...
...He's chosen never to run statewide...
...The American people are worried about immigration...
...California representative Dana Rohrabacher decried the Senate's guest worker proposal as "the foul odor that's coming out of the United States Senate...
...The Senate Judiciary Committee had not followed the lead of the House in adopting an "enforcement only" immigration bill...
...Anti-immigration yahoo Tom Tancredo carried the sixth district of Colorado comfortably in 2004 (though running slightly behind pro-immigration George W. Bush...
...Dana Rohrabacher has represented a safe GOP seat in Orange County for almost two decades...
...and Lindsey Graham from South Carolina and Sam Brown-back from Kansas—both very popular in their red states...
...It could easily dash Republican hopes of becoming a long-term governing party...
...He lost, in a red state, a race he had been favored to win...
...Four GOP senators voted in the Senate Judiciary Committee for the comprehensive immigration bill these blustering House members believe is electoral suicide: Arlen Specter, elected and reelected in blue state Pennsylvania...
...53 percent support sending illegals home, while 40 percent endorsed a path to citizenship...
...Though the House bill has no flag-related provision to my knowledge, Virginia representative Virgil Goode nonetheless weighed in, "I say if you are here illegally and want to fly the Mexican flag, go to Mexico and wave the American flag...
...No Republican candidate except the idiosyncratic Arnold Schwarzenegger has won statewide since...
...I say, let the prisoners pick the fruits...
...After all, he explained, if illegal aliens who do many farm jobs were deported, "the millions of young men who are prisoners around our country can pick the fruits and vegetables...
...He's never run statewide...
...Rohrabacher predicted that Senator John McCain and other immigration supporters would find their careers cut short...
...Iowa representative Steve King provided the rhetorical climax of the press gathering when he claimed that the current Senate Judiciary bill is really an amnesty bill (it isn't), and thundered, "Anybody that votes for an amnesty bill deserves to be branded with a scarlet letter, A' for amnesty, and they need to pay for it at the ballot box in November...
...Much of it had to do with the political ramifications of the immigration issue...
...But the press conference was not heavy on substantive policy argument...
...Virgil Goode has a safe GOP seat in Southside Virginia...
...I am not making this up...
...Colorado representative Tom Tancredo explained that President Bush didn't understand the electoral dynamics of the issue, and lamented, "Although he's not running for reelection, I wish he would think about the party...
...Let's talk about ballot boxes...
...Most Republican officeholders know that the political—and moral—cost of turning the GOP into an anti-immigration, Know Nothing party would be very great...
Vol. 11 • April 2006 • No. 28
