This should be easy to prove. Find me a candidate who won with anti-illegal rhetoric? Surely neither Tancredo or Romney. Surely not that US Representative from Arizona who lost in 2006.
At best, this issue may be enough to defeat a candidate in a primary but not enough to win in a general election. The problem is those with a degree or training more than college are inclined to be statistically more prone to support tolerance on this and other issues.
Whether they are right or wrong in this view makes little difference. The bottom line is it does make a difference in voter preference. Not the only issue, but a key issue determining a general approach to governance.
“Find me a candidate who won with anti-illegal rhetoric?”
Heath Shuler
Tolerance of what? People ILLEGALLY sneaking into our country? If we're now "tolerant" of that then this country's finished, so what the hell difference does it make who wins the election?
"Tolerance" is just a PC term for lower intellectual and ethical standards. Colleges are what they are today precisely because our leaders abdicated their responsibility on a large number of issues forty years ago, and the result is that today our leaders advocate even more irresponsible policies because the dumbed-down graduates desire even lower standards.
I'm sitting here right now with a copy of my college's student newspaper. Here are "highlights" from this issue:
**A column defending Eliot Spitzer on the grounds that cavorting with prostitutes is no big deal.
**An article praising a professor for her concern for "gay rights" and for her outspoken condemnation of the recent "noose hangings".
**A profile of a Filipina feminist and her ethno-centric art works.
**An article telling us what a genius Spike Lee is.
**A column asserting that the Patriot Act has turned America into a fascist police state. This is part of a weekly series called "War Watch" which presents (of course) only one side.
So excuse me if I'm not impressed that college educated Americans are increasingly idiotic. If McCain was a leader, he'd explain why opening the borders is dangerous, rather than throwing up his hands and conceding our national sovereignty. We're in this mess because we failed to fight the culture war forty years ago.
You might have a point there, shrinkermd. But look at how you phrase your point-— you write about “anti-illegal rhetoric” whereas John McCain specifically accuses Rick Santorum along with other mainstream conservatives, of being “anti-immigrant” or at least of campaigning as such. That's equivalent to calling anyone to the right of him on the issue of illegal immigration a bigot. It should be obvious to Senator McCain that a person can be anti-illegal immigration, or even be for decreasing the amount of legal immigration, without being “anti-immigrant”. It should be, but apparently it isn't.
Senator McCain's self-righteous arrogance is similar to that of the sort of global warming radical who believes anyone who disagrees with Al Gore must at best care very little about the environment and more likely despise it; that self-righteous cynical arrogance about those to the right of him on issues like immigration, or global warming, or campaign finance reform actually bothers me more than his stances on those issues, particularly since I plan to vote for him.
Want to come up with an honest example?