Posted on 09/09/2015 4:24:15 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
One of the irritating things about the way the other GOP frontrunners have dealt with Trump is that they have interpreted Trump’s surge as being all about immigration and have all tried to essentially out-Trump the Donald on this issue. No one’s pandering on this issue has been more transparent or weak-kneed than Scott Walker, who I suppose hoped that he could co-opt at least part of Trump’s surge by positioning himself firmly on the side of an issue that he doesn’t even really seem to understand.
As a result of this and other missteps, Walker suddenly finds himself fading into the back of the pack of the second-tier candidates. Others have reacted less dramatically than Walker but still have tacked to the “right” on immigration, including Rubio. It hasn’t helped. In fact, as far as anyone an tell, it has hurt.
I am at a loss as to why, along among all the other candidates not named Trump, Ben Carson is the only one in the field who is comfortable enough in his own skin to say what he means about immigration regardless of the perceived political cost.
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson knocked rival Donald Trump’s immigration plan on Tuesday, saying that deporting the country’s undocumented immigrants “sounds really cool” but would be far too costly and complicated.
“It sounds really cool, you know, ‘Let’s just round them all up and send them back,'” Carson said. “People who say that have no idea what that would entail in terms of our legal system, the costs – forget about it. Plus, where you gonna send them? It’s just a double whammy.”
Carson has been gaining on Trump, the GOP frontrunner, in recent polls. An NBC/Marist poll released Sunday found Carson has jumped to second place in Iowa among Republican voters, seven points behind the real estate mogul.
Trump’s immigration plan calls for deporting the estimated 11 million undocumented workers currently in the U.S., a proposal that opponents say would cost billions and would be nearly impossible to execute. Carson said that he instead favors a plan that would allow undocumented workers the chance to become guest workers.
Here is the dirty secret in Republican politics: Carson’s position is the majority position, even among Republican voters. Polls have consistently shown that well over half of Republican voters favor a path to legal status for illegal immigrants who are currently in the country, especially if conditions are met. As the nomination of George W. Bush (who explicitly ran on a path to citizenship) in 2000 and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2008 (who authored more than one path to citizenship bill while a Senator) illustrated, having a moderate position on immigration is not a death sentence among actual Republican voters.
It is, however, likely to get you criticized by people who hold large megaphones in the conservative movement – the Laura Ingrahams and the Ann Coulters of the world, and especially by big time power brokers in Iowa like Jan Mickelson, who tend to be uniformly monolithic on immigration. And since the Republican primary in recent years has increasingly become a race to grab the right flank on everything, it seems that everyone in the race has concluded that they must toe the Trump line or else face immolation at the hands of the voters, and there’s no evidence that that is actually so. And the few who have tried have failed at it miserably.
I have no idea if Ben Carson is actively making a play for the moderate vote on immigration. I suspect, rather, that he is simply saying what he thinks and letting the chips fall where they may. And that’s really the most refreshing position of all, when it comes to this particular debate.
Good point.
please explain how the 7th day adventists are a cult?
“For some reason, it is being kept quiet about the Ellen White cult, Seventh Day Adventism, that Carson is a member of. Some would say, in the same league as Jehovah Witnesses and Mormonism.”
please explain your reasons for considering 7th day adventists, Jehovah Witnesses and mormons as cults? is this belief based on your religious affiliation?
“Which a vast majority of voters support” is a fiction.
There is no credible poll that supports that.
This is not merely an “amnesty vs. deportation” matter, unless one cares to be both pedantic and emotional about it.
Eisenhowever held office in an age when words were not trifled-with and the percentage of illegals was smaller. We’ve had decades of public school dumbing down to the extent most citizens of the USA haven’t the slightest clue what their citizenship even means. The problem is not impossible to solve, but neither instant mass amnesty nor instant mass deportation will do it.
He is for amnesty and against deportation. And what he has said on these topics makes one wonder if he stupid (which I don’t think he is) or he has some other agenda. His comments, assuming he was not lying, were stupid and wrong. Eisenhower deported large numbers. Poland has deported millions. Deportation can be done relatively easily.
good points
Eisenhower’s deportation wasn’t instant, but it was apparent to all that were here illegally that their time would come shortly. About half of the total that left did so on their own.
What has been missing is a respect for the law from the likes of Clinton, Dubya and Obama. Every foreign national wanting to ignore our laws got the message loud and clear. Dubya and Obama being the worst, both siding with the illegals and pushing for amnesty.
All that any President has to do is start removing people one at a time. Any hard cases are tough luck for those who gave themselves permission to break the law. Any problems they or their children encounter is due to their own choosing, their own disrespect for the law, and it doesn’t matter one bit whether Obama or Dubya or any other treason lobby hack was cheering for them and against the American people who have had to watch our own culture and way of life get washed away in the flood.
I was just stating what is common knowledge among most American Christians. The reputation of these groups probably has a lot to do with certain names associated with them: Ellen White, Taze Russell, and Joseph Smith.
But, but..
Here’s the dirty secret in Republican politics: Carson’s position is the majority position, even among Republican voters.
I know this to be true because Leon H. Wolf says so. /sarc.
so much wrong, so little time...
That “missing respect for the law” of which you speak is not turned around so easily these days. It is the result of linguistic and philosophical forces aided not only by technology but also by a studied disregard for objective truth and virtue as espoused by the practitioners of public education. The nature of man, the nature of marriage and family, the nature of God - all of these have been steadily eroded in our midst. We do ourselves a disservice in treating the illegal alien problem as needing an “either/or” remedy: either deport them all now or grant them amnesty and all benefits now.
Is sending them back to their home country such a puzzle that Carson can’t solve?
On the other hand, Trump’s touchback is largely for show to make his own amnesty for illegals somehow more palatable.
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