Posted on 03/28/2006 7:45:11 AM PST by johnny7
As attitudes harden, Bush risks losing control of his immigration reform efforts and his party faces alienating a key electoral bloc.
WASHINGTON — This weekend's huge protest in Los Angeles against a proposed immigration crackdown was a metaphor for the sprawling problem facing President Bush: Though he has helped ignite the first significant debate over federal immigration policy in decades, he now is struggling to retain control of an issue that has provoked vitriol nationwide.
Many House Republicans are fighting Bush's signature initiative to set up a guest-worker program that would allow some undocumented workers to remain and work in the United States for a specified period of time — and they are even more enraged by the bill approved Monday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would treat illegal immigrants even more liberally. That clash of ideas has set a combative tone that threatens to drown out Bush's more temperate message.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Most of the American hispanics I know are turning on the president and GOP for failing to protect the borders.
Yet another example of the dinosaur media running their dreams as a headline
Well why don't we just find out. Works for me, close the borders, fine the employers. Then we will see who is right.
Legal immigrants of all stripes want the borders secured.
Nice lie though.
This weekend's huge protest in Los Angeles against a proposed immigration crackdown was a metaphor for the sprawling problem facing President Bush: Though he has helped ignite the first significant debate over federal immigration policy in decades, he now is struggling to retain control of an issue that has provoked vitriol nationwide.
BS, it was a coordinated effort by crappy Mehicano Radio Stations to get a bunch of ne'erdowells to have a fiesta.
Think of it as Mojado-Stock...
Good Catholic (or Evangelical) Latinos are going to vote for the party of gay marriage, abortion on demand and no school vouchers?
Morons at the slimes are the same liars who produced fake polls showing Chubbs Bustamante beating Arnold in 2003.
Alternative headline..."A soft GOP line will erode conservative vote."
There...that's better.
The only two states where it matters are New Mexico which with 3 electoral votes is unlikely to tip many elections and Florida where most of the Hispanic voters are Cubans who don't much like illegal Mexicans competing with them at the bottom of the economy.
The outcome in California, Arizona, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Massachussets which are all the highest density Hispanic immigration states is pretty much predetermined with or without the Hispanic vote.
And then there is the rather racist assumption that Hispanics are mindless and all hold the same opinion on the immigration issue. There are a lot of Hispanics that consider themselves to be Americans first and resent the massive flow of illegals and want it stopped regardless of the race of the invaders. I am half Hispanic and have voted as a conservative Republican and I will vote against any politician (Republican or Democrat) that votes for amnesty. I am also part Irish and I want the Irish illegals deported too. For me and I believe many Americans of Hispanic origin, race has nothing to do with this issue. It is all about the rule of law. Recall that 46% of Hispanics voted for Proposition 200 in Arizona.
IMMIGRATION
"I have no doubt of the power and duty of the executive, under the law of the nation, to exclude enemies of the human race from asylum in the United States."
CONSERVATISM
"I do not mean to say that this general government is charged with the duty of redressing or preventing all the wrongs in the world--but I do think it is charged with preventing any wrongs to itself."
The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, James C. Humes, Gramercy Books, 1996
The President, RINO's, Dems & the MSM don't... so they are offering you what they think is the next, best thing.
A BIG, SH_T SANDWICH!
Gee...how nice of the Times to warn the GOP. /sarcasm
Right, I'm sure all those hardened leftists marching in the streets are normally good reliable GOP voters. Give me a break, this is the same BS that Rove has been pushing for 6 years.
Villaraigosa spends a lot of time on Spanish language TV stations I surf into, haranguing about something or other. I doubt it has anything to do with the interests of the non-Spanish-speaking voters in L.A. What's the Times's view on that?
Bush did get 40ish% of the Hispanic vote in 2004, but remember some of that is Cuban in Florida. His percentage is lower among Mexican descent Hispanics. With that voter group growing (and note these are voters, i.e., citizens, not illegals) the GOP can't ignore it and survive.
Look, it appears to me the way to play this is focus on border security and defocus, but not totally ignore, some address of those present. There are never total solutions to any problem of this kind, so something incremental is needed, and Bush's program goes in that direction PROVIDED focus is applied.
If most of his verbage is about border security and the strict constraints on guest working are also stressed, conservatives could come to embrace it. The key should be huge photo-op coverage on new border security measures. The guest worker stuff can be de-emphasized and essentially postponed until after some solid measure of rapid decline towards zero of the influx.
Make no mistake on this. If the influx stops this impacts severely those already present. Many of those make trips to visit "home". If they can't return, their habits are hit hard, whether they are guest workers or not.
Pride and politics aside, the legals I know are PISSED about the rallies, wussy law enforcement and forced association with those who scamper back and forth across the border at will.
Watch for this angle to be used on every MSM newscast for the rest of the week.
Liberalism is group therapy.
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