Posted on 03/03/2008 1:21:43 PM PST by Milltownmalbay
For the most part, the Republican presidential candidates tried to play the "immigration" card — one that may backfire come November.
Only John McCain was willing to take a gentler approach to immigration and thank God he’s the last man standing. CNN and the liberal media were all too willing to let the Republicans continue their suicidal plunge on immigration.
Meanwhile, the New York Post recently featured a column by Geraldo Rivera decrying the impact of the immigration debate on the Republican Party: freefall in the polls among Latino voters. President Bush carried 45 percent of the Latino vote in 2004.
The number plunged during the 2006 midterm elections and prominent opponents to immigration suffered devastating defeats, including Rep. J. D. Hayworth from Arizona. Meanwhile, support for the Republican Party has plunged to about 21 percent among Latinos.
The problem is even worse when we consider that the Latinos are the fastest growing demographic in the country and will grow in electoral influence throughout this century. Concurrently, continuing anti-immigrant rhetoric will continue to cost Republicans among this important group of voters.
Does this mean that the Republican Party should allow open borders and turn a blind eye to illegal immigration? Obviously not, but that does not mean that immigration should figure so prominently in the Republican platform.
Perhaps President Bush’s approach to the abortion issue could serve as a blueprint. President Bush does not speak about abortion. When asked about the issue, he is less than articulate. Yet he has done more to advance the pro-life cause than any other president, including the most eloquent defender of human life Ronald Reagan.
Pro-life voters can thank President Bush for the partial-birth abortion ban, the Unborn Victims Protection Act, as well as judges Roberts and Alito. In 2004, they did: 23 percent of the people who voted for Bush were single-issue pro-life voters. Meanwhile, there was little or no rhetoric to energize pro-abortion voters.
The same approach should be used for immigration.
A Republican presidential campaign should say very little about immigration. A Republican president could order the Justice Department to enforce the law while publicly advocating more legal immigration. Republicans should quietly enforce the law and loudly argue for greater quotas and a streamlined, less bureaucratic system to enable legal immigration. Likewise, Republicans could put in place a more aggressive program to help Americanize and mainstream immigrants.
Republicans will never have an opportunity to lead on this issue or any other if they do not tone down the rhetoric, however. Eroding Republican support among Latino voters threatens to freeze Republicans into minority status for another 50 years. Perhaps nothing underscores this point more than CNN’s eagerness to ask Republican candidates about immigration during the debates.
Rev. Michael P. Reilly is assistant principal at St. Joseph by the Sea High School in Staten Island, New York.
go away. I don’t like bullies or people that pick fights on here. Vote for your girl Hillary.
That argument never works on Conservatives, and doubly so when the candidate is McCain. Save your breath. McCain is toast.
The right wing is toast. John McCain will be our next president.
I was just thinking the same thing right before I read your post.
Finally some sanity from a Conservative. The Deportation patrol has about destroyed the Conservative message. Most Americans are not terrified of Paco weeding and harvesting the fields like Talk Radio is.
Pray for W and Our Troops
I knew this guy didn’t come from SoCal or any other border area before I read the end of his piece. Those of you for whom illegal immigration is a distant “issue” and not yet affecting your day-to-day life, all I can say is WAIT. Coming to your town soon enough, and do not say you were not warned.
How about when Paco gets his amnesty and registers to vote as a leftist Democrat? With amnesty, we’re talking about locking the ultra-left into power in perpetuity.
So you’re an Obama boy, then?
You do realize that everyone here now knows that you’re a Democrat interloper, don’t you? And that the reason you’re still allowed to post is that you’re benefitting the anti-amnesty forces?
If you were a citizen you would vote for either Obama or Hillary. In fact, you might do so anyway if you live in California since no ID is required to vote there. Gosh, I wonder why the DEMOCRATS voted to do away with ID as a requirement for voting, given that you’ve assured us that all these illegals with third grade educations are sure to vote Republican.
Only if Republicans allow the Democrats to take the credit. The only choice we have is to whole heartedly support legalization. Furthermore, the GOP must expel the anti-immigration extremists from the party to show we are serious about making amends with Hispanics.
Dream on.
George Bush lost the Hispanic vote to Dukakis 70-30 shortly after the Reagan amnesty. As for the extremist charge, the last time I checked the conservative side has won virtually every referendum ever held on these issues. Prop 187 won easily, as did the anti-illegals intitiatives in Arizona. Illegals are as unpopular as same-sex "marriage", which, by the way, will become law if amnesty passes.
I am a citizen, lifelong Republican, born and raised in the USA, and I will be voting for John McCain just like every other patriotic American.
Yet, John McCain is the Republican nominee not Duncan Hunter or Tom Tancredo or even Ron Pual. Seems to me you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.
So Ronald Reagan was an unpatriotic American?
Reagan signed an amnesty because he mistakenly believed it was a one-shot deal and we would never have another amnesty again. It was a tragic mistake, perhaps the biggest of his administration. The appointment of O'Connor to the Supreme Court is the only one to rival it. He learned that when you compromise with the left, you get burned. His amnesty of about three million illegals was supposed to be accompanied by strict immigration law enforcement so that we never again had that many illegals in our nation. Of course, that's not what happened.
We now know that amnesty will never be accompanied by strict enforcement because the newly legalized illegals will flood into the Democrat Party, and the Democrats will, as a result, kill any effort to protect the borders.
Name one compromise between the GOP and the leftist 'Rats which worked out as being beneficial to the GOP. You can't.
I mentioned that Bush lost the Hispanic vote to Dukakis and that anti-illegal proposals always pass when the people get to vote on them, and you change the subject to McCain’s success in getting Dems to cross over to vote for him in GOP primaries. Typical.
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