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.”
That has become the new chat at cocktail parties, especially working women who brag about all of the "available help" for their children, cleaning and cooking, while their husbands are bragging about "how little they paid to re-roof their homes, or how they were able to get that new stone wall built in the garden for very little money.
Many blacks see immigration as a direct threat to their own livelihood. Come the general election, the Republicans need to hammer this home.
Thigpen rhymes with “pigpen.” His analysis stinks just as bad.
ping
Huck leading in SC....someone needs a wake up call!
Of course it is important, we are being taken over...trojan horse and all that...
The title “Immigration dominates GOP issues in South Carolina”
and
Huck leading the GOP candidates
What’s wrong with this picture?
That’s because he’s a second tier candidate. Thompson has been stagnant for quite a while.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.