Posted on 01/07/2008 8:23:18 AM PST by Between the Lines
As Jan. 19 primary nears, candidates putting focus on controversial topic.
Expect the rhetoric over illegal immigration to heat up as the Jan. 19 S.C. GOP primary draws near with candidates reacting to voter concerns about the state’s fast-growing Hispanic population.
Polls have shown immigration is more important to Republican voters in South Carolina than it is to Democrats. In fact, S.C. GOP backers have made immigration their top issue in choosing a president.
“This is the new Confederate flag issue in South Carolina on the Republican side,” said Neal Thigpen, a political science professor at Francis Marion University and a Republican.
South Carolina has one of the country’s fastest-growing Hispanic populations, up 47 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to the Census Bureau. No one knows how many illegal immigrants live in South Carolina, but population estimates range from 150,000 to 400,000. Demographers agree most are Hispanic.
The fast growth is something South Carolinians notice in their daily activities whether they see Hispanics at the grocery store or working on a neighbor’s roof, Thigpen said. They begin to wonder if another ethnic group is taking over.
People who enter the country without proper documentation have broken the law, and crime is always a popular platform for politicians, Thigpen said.
“And let’s face it,” he added. “There’s some bigotry in there and that fuels it.”
NO. 1 ISSUE WITH GOP VOTERS IN S.C.?
The immigration debate in South Carolina mirrors national concern over the growing number of illegal immigrants.
The Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research institute, found 15 percent of today’s voters nationwide are concerned about illegal immigration, compared with only 2 percent who thought it was an issue in 2005, said Paul Taylor, the center’s acting director.
Immigration rivaled the war in Iraq as a top issue for Republican voters in two other early primary states, Iowa and New Hampshire, according to a November New York Times/CBS News poll.
In South Carolina, an ETV/Winthrop University poll found immigration was a chief concern among Republicans; 18 percent listed it as their top issue. Iraq came in second with 16 percent.
However, just 4 percent of Democrats polled listed immigration as a priority. Their top worry was Iraq.
As a result, Democratic candidates have not spent much time talking about illegal immigration.
“Our voters are more concerned about the war and finding good jobs,” said Joe Werner, executive director of the S.C. Democratic Party.
While Republicans want their candidates to address illegal immigration, the issue won’t be the deciding factor for Republican voters, predicts Katon Dawson, the S.C. Republican Party chairman.
“I don’t think this is going to be the immigration election but it’s going to be part of the process,” Dawson said.
Still, the Republican candidates have taken shots at each other over immigration.
• Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — who won Thursday night’s Iowa GOP caucus and is leading in South Carolina, according to polls — has been criticized for supporting a plan for children of illegal immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition and college scholarships.
• Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney fired his lawn service after news reports found the company hired illegal immigrants.
• Rudy Giuliani has been accused of running a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants when he was mayor of New York City.
• U.S. Sen. John McCain took a political blow last summer when he supported a bipartisan immigration reform plan that critics said would offer amnesty to illegal immigrants.
However, the hard-core anti-illegal immigration crowd lost their candidate before Christmas when U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, D-Colo., dropped out.
Teela Roche, co-chairwoman of South Carolinians for Immigration Moderation in Clemson, said she will choose a candidate based on his immigration stance.
Roche plans to follow Tancredo’s endorsement of Romney even though the former governor used a business that employed illegal immigrants.
“You could throw a rock into a group and hit someone who is guilty of that,” she said. “The illegal immigration population is so big it’s hard not to.”
Roche finds it easier to forgive Romney’s hiring faux pas than McCain, Giuliani or Huckabee, who she says made policy decisions that were soft on illegal immigration.
TOPIC COULD DOMINATE DEBATE
If the Republican presidential candidates only have been jabbing each other over illegal immigration until now, just wait until the Jan. 19 S.C. primary draws closer, Thigpen said.
He predicts the issue will dominate Thursday’s Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, just nine days before the state GOP primary.
The debate’s site — in a tourism-based economy that depends, in part, on immigrant workers — is a good setting for a discussion of the issue.
“They’ll all try to take roundhouse swings at each other,” Thigpen said of the Republican candidates.
“I betcha it consumes the thing.”
I just sent an email to the reporter regarding her omission of Hunter. Attached to the story is a list of where the candidates stand on immigration and once again Duncan Hunter is not listed and we all wonder why he is not doing better. Any Hunter supporters willing to do a nice “letter to the editor”? I’m not good at those.
The center's name doesn't give me a feeling that it is "nonpartisan."
Typical media elitist response -
don't want your emergency rooms closed due to lack of funds to pay for illegals = bigiotry; don't like your kids being in crowded schools with kids from third world countries, giving them lice, whooping cough, measles, TB = bigotry;
don't like paying higher taxes to support welfare, food stamps, housing vouchers going to non-citizen, illegal aliens = bigotry;
tired of growing crime problems everywhere = bigotry.
I, personally, am exhausted by liberals referring to me and others like me as "bigots" because I don't desire to pay for their slave labor nannies, lawn services and construction cos. that "keep prices down" on their manions by using under paid, untaxed wages as bigots.
They are liberal, elite bigots who want slaves and would gladly take us back to the days of slavery. Not blacks from Africa (unless they are here as illegal aliens, of course) but desire a constant supply of near slave labor to affordd all of the things they want at dirt cheap prices.
It is really they who are the bigots for not desiring to help these poor people gain the freedom, democracy "good life" and all that it entails in their own countries, where they already speak the language!
I don't believe the stupidity of RATS. People might be able to find a good job if the Mexicans weren't taking them all!!
That being said. I cannot wait for this election. I certainly hope the good people in So. Carolina will dump that sorry pos, Lindsey Graham! I absolutely detest him!! IF I never have to hear his whiny little faggot voice, or look at his little girlie face again, it will be too soon.
That’s EXACTLY what I was thinking. They can’t get rid of him soon enough for me.
A disgraceful comparison.
"And let’s face it,” he added. “There’s some bigotry in there and that fuels it.”
And now we see he is a RINO, not a "Republican".
As usual. But I think this is why Thompson did the debates...not for NH but for SC, and why he sounded off on immigration so much. Good strategy in my opinion. I hope he puts the stake thru Huckabee in SC.
Soooo, does that mean you're going to get rid of him? Pleaseeee, pleaseee, pleaseeee, tell me that there's someone running against him that can actually beat him? I will never forget watching him call us "bigots" and that "he was going to tell us to shut our mouths." I hope the voters of South Carolina shut his mouth, and that we never see him clutter the halls of Congress again.
Is there another debate in SC before the vote?
Good Who is to Primary Lyndsay lightfoot?
Reminds me of a segment on Err America a couple of years ago (think it was Randi Rhodes) talking about how wonderfully cheap her cleaning lady was. The host was suspecting she was here illegally but was only concerned with how cheap she was.
DUNCAN HUNTER RATED EXCELLENT, AHEAD OF ALL THE OTHERS BY NUMBERS USA, Jan. 5, 2008
HUNTER has 9 EXCELLENTS (the rest all GOOD), compared to the next 6 Excellents (One Poor) of Fred Thompson. Hunter is WAY ahead of he rest of them that are left in the race. Ron Paul earned one ‘excellent’ and several ‘poor’, ‘bad’.
See Chart:
http://www.betterimmigration.com/candidates/2006/prez08_gop1.html
This is how the GOP screws Republicans. The GOP thinks it owns South Carolina.
How could they print this article and not name shameless shamnesty-proponent Lindsey Graham?
Please, South Carolina, boot him outta office ...
Bingo!
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