Get back to me when 2 GOP cnadidates Randy Graf and J.D. Hayworth in the border state of Arizona and who made hardline immigration their main campaign topics are speaking from the well of the House floor.
They won't be in the 110th Congress, since they lost.
Speaking of losing, your Steelers sure did have another week to be proud of, eh?
Ask yourself the following questions, and try to be honest in answering;
If there had been no Iraq war (or if the war still polled well), and had there been no corruption scandals, do you think Hayworth still would have lost? Do you really think that it was his enforcement-first approach that lost the race for Hayworth? At most, Hayworth may have been guilty of focusing too much on immigration. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that, as I've never claimed that immigration is a reliably top-tier, vote-deciding issue. There are almost always other issues that matter more, and this year was clearly no different. It may indeed be true that a tough line on immigration failed to save Hayworth and others like him, but what you and Jacoby are guilty of is forgetting (intenionally so on her part) that they were in a position of having to be saved. Again, why was that?
The same questions go for two dozen or so other soon-to-be former Republican House members, as well as Senator Talent, and maybe even Senators Allen, Burns, Chafee and DeWine. Chafee and Dewine, it should be noted, were supporters of the 'comprehensive' approach, so why did they lose? If we use the same rules utilized by Jacoby (that all races are a referendum on immigration), then we must conclude that they lost because they championed comprehensive reform...right? I'm sure you'd say 'no' to that, and point out that there were other factors accounting for their loss, like Iraq and Corruption. And you'd be right, but to then argue that those other factors can only be used to account for the loss of a 'comprehensive' reformer and not a 'restrictionist' is ridiculous, and dishonest.
Going back to Arizona; as to Graf, that was always going to be tough as it was a conservative Republican trying to replace a liberal-moderate one. And of course the fact that the national party chose not to help made it even harder. But if his and Hayworth's loss showed the overewhelming rejection of tougher policies, then why did Arizonans overwhelmingly pass several hardline immigration ballot initiatives? Why did Senator Kyl defeat Pederson, when it was Pederson championing the McCain-Kennedy amnesty/comprehensive bill?
Some other questions you should ask yourself are;
Do you think that most Americans would support the various 'comprehensive' bills if they knew how they would result in massive increases in permanent legal immigration? If so, then why is it that McCain, Kennedy, Hagel, Reid, et al never saw fit to inform us rubes that their bills would do just that? Why would they choose not to brag about such a huge part of the bill? Why were they so silent on this?