Posted on 11/19/2006 4:43:19 PM PST by Reagan Man
The idea is spreading that this month’s Republican electoral defeat somehow represented voter rejection of the enforcement-first approach to immigration championed by the House Republican leadership, and meant, instead, voter endorsement of the Bush-McCain-Kennedy approach that would amnesty (or “legalize”) the illegal aliens already here and double or triple future legal immigration.
This notion is so colossally wrong only a senator could believe it.
Kyl Won, DeWine Lost
Sen. Mel Martinez (R.-Fla.), that is. The presumptive general chairman of the Republican National Committee is peddling this ludicrous pro-amnesty spin, joined by a number of other politicians and journalists. Martinez told the Washington Times: “I think we have to understand that the election did speak to one issue, and that was that it’s not about bashing people, it’s about presenting a hopeful face. … Border security only, enforcement only, harshness only is not the message that I believe America wants to convey.”
Even before the election, the pro-amnesty crowd was preparing a full-blown disinformation campaign. Immigration enthusiast Fred Barnes blamed the then-coming Republican defeat in part on Congress’ failure to pass an amnesty and increase legal immigration. “But imagine,” Barnes wrote, “if Republicans had agreed on a compromise and enacted a ‘comprehensive’—Mr. Bush’s word—immigration bill, dealing with both legal and illegal immigrants. They’d be justifiably basking in their accomplishment. The American public, except for nativist diehards, would be thrilled.”
Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria was practically quivering in anticipation: “The great obstacle to immigration reform has been a noisy minority. … Come Tuesday, the party will be over. CNN’s Lou Dobbs and his angry band of xenophobes will continue to rail, but a new Congress, with fewer Republicans and no impending primary elections, would make the climate much less vulnerable to the tyranny of the minority.”
“Angry band of xenophobes”? “Nativist diehards”? That’s you and me, folks.
After Election Day, the name-calling continued. Tamar Jacoby of the otherwise conservative Manhattan Institute used her entrée at the Weekly Standard to denounce “far-right” groups she said were motivated by “xenophobia” and engaging in “demagoguery” over this “wedge issue.” She sounded an awful lot like a Democrat complaining about, say, the defense of traditional marriage. The Wall Street Journal, of course, cackled at “Immigration Losers” and warned against following immigration controllers “down the garden path of defeat.”
The open-borders crowd scavenged for results they hoped would confirm their pre-packaged conclusions. A favorite was the defeat of two Republican immigration hawks running for the House in Arizona, incumbent Rep. J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, who was seeking liberal Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe’s seat. The problem with pointing to these results as proof of the public’s support for the Bush-McCain-Kennedy “comprehensive” amnesty plan is that the very same voters overwhelmingly approved four good ballot measures related to immigration: denying bail to illegals, barring illegals from winning punitive damages in civil suits, prohibiting illegals from receiving certain state subsidies for education and day care, and declaring English the state’s official language. Clearly, the actual policy issue of immigration control remained hugely popular and, while Hayworth’s opponent endorsed a guest-worker program, he explicitly said on his campaign website, “Secure Our Border and Stop Illegal Immigration,” “Hold employers accountable for whom they hire,” and, “I oppose amnesty and will not support it.” Hardly a Bush echo.
Searching elsewhere for some ammunition, amnesty proponents pointed to the defeats in Colorado of Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez and Republican House aspirant Rick O’Donnell as proof that the public is with them. What they don’t mention is that Colorado voters approved two tough initiatives: one to deny the tax deductibility of wages paid to illegals and another requiring the state’s attorney general to sue the federal government over non-enforcement of the immigration laws.
In the anti-Republican storm, both hawks and doves were affected. Immigration-control stalwarts such as Republican Rep. John Hostettler of Indiana were washed away, but so was Republican Senate amnesty co-sponsor Mike DeWine of Ohio. On the other hand, nationally known immigration hawks such as Republican Representatives Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin enjoyed easy re-election, as did Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, an immigration dove.
The pro-amnesty crowd has yet to explain why, if the public is with them, no candidates made a main part of their campaigns their support for legalizing illegal aliens and admitting millions of additional foreign workers. The only exception was Jim Pederson, the Democrat running against Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona. Pederson not only championed the President’s amnesty/guest-worker plan, but lauded the 1986 amnesty disaster as well. Unsurprisingly, he was defeated.
Some smarter—winning—Democrats actually had very tough immigration positions, explicitly endorsing an enforcement-first approach. For instance, Brad Ellsworth (who defeated Hostettler in Indiana) said: “We need to tighten our borders, enforce the laws we have and punish employers who break them.” Sen.-elect Claire McCaskill of Missouri expressed similar views, as did Sen.-elect Jon Tester of Montana and Jason Altmire, who was elected to the House from Pennsylvania.
Regardless of the facts, if the “amnesty mandate” myth takes root, the consequences could be dire. We’re already seeing its effects, with President Bush’s saying the day after the election that immigration is an area “where I believe we can find some common ground with the Democrats.” Martinez’s selection as RNC chairman is particularly disturbing in this context, because he didn’t just vote for the Senate amnesty, he actually wrote the final version. His Hagel-Martinez bill (S 2611) passed in May, despite the opposition of a majority of his fellow Republicans in the Senate—and it was dismissed out of hand by virtually all House Republicans.
Preventing the acceptance of the open-border crowd’s fairy-tale version of the election is imperative—both to stymie next year’s Bush/Democrat efforts to pass the amnesty and to preserving opportunities for future Congresses and Presidents to actually address this pressing issue in a constructive fashion.
I must have missed her campaigning for the job with "amnesty for illegals" as her on of her talking points. /sarc
Uh no, I am using facts and common sense. If immigration was such a big issue, then please tell me how Ms. Amnesty, nancy pelosi, became Speaker.
Uh you also do know that Reagan signed real amnesty in 86, also you do know that Milton Friedman was against the protectionist economics you preach.
You are dodging the question again!
I asked you if you favored amnesty for illegals....and you come up with this.
Do you really consider that to be an answer to a very direct, and repeated question?
One more time.
Reagan didn't support open borders. Reagan said: "A nation without borders is not a nation." Reagan did sign into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 that granted amnesty to 2.7 million illegals. It specified prosecution and punishment for employers who hired illegals. If that law was enforced, the IRCA of 1986 would have turned out to be what it was meant to be, a one time ONLY amnesty deal. Instead, the Feds lack of enforcement led to a ongoing series of liberal immigration policies under Bush41, Clinton and Bush43, that has led to the 10-15 million illegals we have living in the US today.
Reagan wasn't into repeating the mistakes of history,. Bush43 wants to ignore the 20/20 hindsight of history and grant amnesty to the 15 million illegals living in the USA today. How dumb can one be!
Indeed, voters voted exactly that. Whether they knew it or not that is exactly what will be the results of believing the RATS. What could be funnier than to believe that a party which planned, organized, staffed, directed, marched in, spoke for and spoke at the huge rallies in the Spring is ANTI-anti-alien?
It is just unfortunate that such mind-boggling ignorance and gullibility will be so costly and dangerous.
When the rallies were taking place I warned these were daggers the RATS would use to hurt the GOP. As I predicted the ensuing firestorm of hysteria and hatred they raised (achieving their perpetrators' goals in spades) against the GOP here helped defeat the party.
It is remarkable how so-called conservatives can be manipulated so easily by the Party of Treason/Treason Media.
Is that why he also gave support to the Brady gun control bill.
A failed experiment.
That, along with the fact that the majority of Americans oppose it, makes Bush's push for amnesty even more unconscionable.
Hayworth, a six-term incumbent representing Scottsdale, Tempe and parts of Mesa, Phoenix and Chandler, was dogged all year by ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Forti added that when he mentioned Hayworth’s “scandal factor” he meant that by election day, Democrats and others had successfully painted the Republican as a candidate entrenched in political wrongdoing.
----snip----
http://www.loftydonkey.com/article/149/gop-spokesman-hayworth-lost-race
Most all the Democrats ran on illegal immigration enforcement. All were moderates or so called "conservative democrats".
You aren't going to convince anyone around here that illegal immigration is not a strong issue.
Why did Arizona pass 4 initiatives against illegals with a 70% margin?
Why are municipalities all over the country passing ordinances against illegals?
Oh, cut me a friggin' break.
The GOP spent money like druken sailors, cavorted with K-street lobbyists, and come September of this year, all they could run on was that they weren't as bad as Democrats, but the GOPalogists point to a principled stand against illegal immigration as the reason they lost? This is the biggest bunch of hooey I've seen since Bill Clinton claim he didn't diddle the intern.
And their first vote in the 110th Congress is going to be for Ms. Amnesty, nancy pelosi.
Uh blow it out your butt Dane.
What that says to me is that the election was not about immigration. It was only about the lib media spoon-feeding the country anti-Bush anti-war anti-Republican messages for 3 years +. That's really the only issue that got the Dems out to vote and very little else. Our side sent various messages on the actual issues, but the Dems did not.
Its just getting harder to find a magazine worth reading...one that doesn't push the open borders agenda
And the democrats are going to be miserly with the Fed. budget.
If anything the democrats will be miserly with tax cuts, but will be like drunken sailors with tax hikes.
"I stopped watching Beltway Boys when I realized Mort Kondrake was starting to make more sense than Barnes"
Hahaha... that was awesome BW2221
FACT. In the next two years GWBush will sign into law the largest amnesty program in history, and 15 million illegals will become US citizens. Dwarfing the 2.7 million that Reagan granted amnesty to.
Here are Reagan's own remarks about the IRCA of 1986. Read them closely and stop obfuscating what Reagan was attempting to accomplish by signing that bill into law.
"This bill, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, that I will sign in a few minutes is the most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws since 1952. It's the product of one of the longest and most difficult legislative undertakings in the last three Congresses. Further, it's an excellent example of a truly successful bipartisan effort. The administration and the allies of immigration reform on both sides of the Capitol and both sides of the aisle worked together to accomplish these critically important reforms to control illegal immigration.
"In 1981 this administration asked the Congress to pass a comprehensive legislative package, including employer sanctions, other measures to increase enforcement of the immigration laws, and legalization. The act provides these three essential components.
"Future generations of Americans will be thankful for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship. "
Makes me wonder why that would be such a difficult question for you to answer.
In a way, your not answering is, in itself, a much bigger answer and explains many of your other posts/replies.
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