How is it Huckabee and McCain are doing so well in the polls? How are any of the Democrat canidates even in the race if this is "THE 100 ton elephent" for 2008? Why are the candidate who are weak on immigration doing the best? Why are the same people who insist they are upset about Illegal Immigration NOT putting their votes where their mouths are?
You all keep saying Illegal Immigration is the “100 ton elephant” and “2008 is all about the Illegals”. Then I look around at the candidates and the current polling data and none of the candidate who are doing well are serious about Illegal Immigration. The candidates who are serious about Illegals are no where winning right now.
So looking at it empirically, I have to draw one of these conclusions. Most of these conclusions are completely at odds with what is said here on this website.
A. People are bothered by the Illegals but not upset about it to change their voting habits. Other issues are more important to them.
B. Like bad weather or gas prices, people are bothered by the Illegals because they keep hearing in the media they are suppose to be upset about the issue but actually, in their day to day lives, don't really care about them and so are not changing their voting habits. C. Outside of activitst, average people aren't really all that upset about the Illegals. D People are still not paying attention enough to figure out just how weak some of these canidates are on Illegal Immigration E. The polling data is serious screwed up and there is a huge surprise coming in a few weeks in Iowa. Like I said, I cannot get my head around how their can be so much passion expressed on the Illegals issue and so little action being taken by people to make an impact on how the the politicans are treating the issue. The disparity between where the retoric is, and where the actions are, are just too great for me to get my head around.
A significant minority of people are single-issue anti-immigration voters. They will not vote for a McCain - or Huckabee, if they knew what he believed.
A much larger section is opposed to illegal immigration in some degree. Like abortion, taxes, and Iraq, it is AN issue to consider.
If the first makes up 10%, the second category makes up 50+%. They are not comfortable with it, but are not vehemently opposed either.
Add in some for media dishonesty as well. Here in Pima County, Arizona, the anti-illegal immigrant republican (GRAF) was portrayed as someone who would break down doors, rape an illegal immigrant and THEN deport her husband. Since the NRC refused to give him a penny, and in fact tried to fund his opponent in the primary, it was a tough image to overcome.
Several amnesty type bills have already been tried and failed and the more the topic is broached to the public the more outrage there is.
I salute our media for doing the best it can on the issue but the msm/dbm has not yet self destructed yet to the point where we can totally ignore them.
That being said,it's pretty obvious the slant they have in treating the issue. Illegals good, law and order types bad, how else can you explain Ramos and Compean still in jail.
Truth is John you may not be looking at all sides on this particular issue.
This is pretty basic, both sides of our politicos have decided to ignore federal immigration laws and the voters, while they may not be marching in the streets, are not happy about it.
When will it become a bigger issue than it is, I really don't know but sometime before Nov of 08 for sure.