Posted on 11/27/2006 6:54:06 AM PST by Princip. Conservative
Rep. Deborah Pryce is keeping her seat in Ohio 15th Congressional District. The Franklin County Board of Elections said she won by 1,054 votes over challenger Mary Jo Kilroy.
The narrow margin of victory means that there will be a recount.
(Excerpt) Read more at 10tv.com ...
For all his tough talk on immigration, Bilbray was going to lose a strongly Republican district, right up until Busby actually encouraged illegals to vote and help her campaign, and did it on tape.
Even so, one swallow does not a Spring make. Even if Bilbray had won solely on his immigration position, it doesn't mean the issue is worth anything anywhere else. All indications from 2006 are that no one cares about it enough to support one politician over another.
For the vast majority of voters -- including Hispanic voters, btw -- it is a merely tangential concern that they don't see affecting their lives. Their vote goes with some other issue, like Iraq or corruption or the economy.
Look, I'm not making any arguments about the merits of one immigration policy or another. I'm just saying that the issue is not the powerful political issue you want it to be.
We will agree to disagree. Where you stand depends on where you sit. There is a growing awareness and understanding of the size and scope of the problem, which is no longer confined to the border states. Indiana may not be as affected yet by the waves of illegal immigrants. Comparing the 1990 census to the 2000 census, the foreign born population of Indiana went from 96,909 to 194,992 with the Mexican born population increasing from 10,433 to 61,336. Compare that to a state like North Carolina where its Mexican-born population went from 8,751 to 179,236. And I believe that these figures are understated since many of the illegals did not comply with the census requirements.
One in about every four Californians (8.9 million) are foreign born and the Mexican-born population increased from 2.4 million in 1990 to 3.9 million in 2000. There is a reason why illegal immigration is an issue for folks like Hunter and Bilbray. We are being invaded by 500,000 to a million illegals every year.
Here in Northern VA, the numbers have increased dramatically over the past decade with the largest group being from El Salvador. The Mexican born population did increase almost five fold. I only live a few miles from famous Herndon, VA, which removed its city council over the immigration issue.
During the 1990s, the nation’s immigrant population grew by 11.3 million — faster than at any other time in our history. In 1990, immigrants from the top sending country — Mexico — accounted for 22 percent of the total foreign born. By 2000, Mexican immigrants accounted for 30 percent of the total. In fact, Mexico alone accounted for 43 percent of the growth in the foreign-born population between 1990 and 2000. In 1990, there were 18 states where Mexican-born residents were the largest group. In 2000, that number increased to 30 states.
Nationally, immigrants from Spanish-speaking Latin American countries increased from 37 percent to 46 percent of the total foreign-born population during the 1990s.
Did you look at this? Illegal immigration is already a powerful political issue in many parts of the country. It will become even more so as it continues to metastasize around the country. Any significant economic downturn will make it more visible and inflamatory. The Reps would be well-advised to distance themselves from comprehensive immigration reform, i.e., amnesty and new "guest worker" programs.
You can ignore the election results from this year all you want -- and forget Indiana, I'm talking about Arizona -- but it doesn't help your cause.
I'm not telling you to give up your principles, I'm only talking about political strategy. Don't expect your views on immigration to bring any extra votes. If you want to field candidates who can win, they'd do better to mention border security but focus on something else.
Hayworth's district is aboutt 43% Republican, 30 odd% Dem and the remainder being Independents, isn't it. Could it be that Hayworths hardline rheoteric sent the Independents in to Mitchell camp?
If Iraq war and Stem cell research, other Republicans in Arizona house delegation would have been in trouble but the only ones there were candidates that were using Immigration as their sole election platform. The evidence is compelling, however you may tend to ignore it.
Tancredo's margin has been shrinking, even though he is in a pretty Republican district.
'Immigration was not the main issue in this campaign no matter how much you stomp your foot and get red in the face.'
A hard line on Immigration is not a guaranteed vote winner for the Republian party no matter how much stomp your foot and get red in the face. It is clearly evident that this issue does not help the party as the one issue deluded voters think it is.
I'm not ignoring the election results in AZ. I have a home in Scottsdale. I have repeatedly shown that illegal immigration was not the main or deciding issue in the Hayworth loss. Corruption and Iraq were the main issues. It was more of an issue in the Graf loss, but Graf was running in the 8th district, which is fairly evenly split between the parties. Kolbe did not endorse Graf. The GOP gave him lukewarm support. Giffords said she supported comprehensive immigration reform as advocated by Bush and McCain.
I'm not telling you to give up your principles, I'm only talking about political strategy. Don't expect your views on immigration to bring any extra votes. If you want to field candidates who can win, they'd do better to mention border security but focus on something else.
I am talking about political strategy, not principles. The overwhelming majority of Congressional Reps are on the right side of the issue and where most Americans are. I believe that illegal immigration is a potent political issue and will become even more so as the invasion continues and the numbers continue to grow. The issue is spreading throughout the country and could be a political winner for the GOP if it is played correctly. It is not going away.
Did you view the Beck presentation on legal immigration?
Based on that map I can see us gaining at least 8 seats after redistricting in 2010 (and as many solid electoral votes for 2012).
Then you believe it contrary to the election results.
I have no idea as to the party split by registration. Read my posts #56 and #63. Those are my views on why Hayworth lost.
A hard line on Immigration is not a guaranteed vote winner for the Republian party no matter how much stomp your foot and get red in the face. It is clearly evident that this issue does not help the party as the one issue deluded voters think it is.
The issue is not going away. See my post #122. I am not a one issue voter. Illegal immigration has a widespread impact on our society affecting almost everything ranging from national security to the economy to the educational system to health care to the penal system to the state of our infrastructure to the entitlement programs. We cannot continue to absorb these huge, unprecedented numbers of self-selected immigrants, most of whom are the poor and undeducated of Latin America.
That's your interpretation, not mine. Did you view the Beck presentation?
Yes, I watched it, it's irrelevant to the discussion we're having.
Nor was I impressed with the exposition on its own merits, it sets up a lot of straw-man arguments about immigration and knocks them down.
Irrelevant because you said so? Of course it is relevant. Immigration policy as it pertains to legal and illegal immigration is and will increasingly be an important, political issue. Add to Beck's 1 million legal immigrants annually another 500,000 to 1 million illegals and you have exponentially increased the impact of Beck's numbers on his charts.
Nor was I impressed with the exposition on its own merits, it sets up a lot of straw-man arguments about immigration and knocks them down.
Specifically, what "strawman arguments" about immigration are you referring to? The hard data are there in terms of the validity of the numbers.
Sure, it's relevant in general, but not to our discussion. We haven't been arguing about the merits of one immigration policy over another. We've been arguing about politics and elections. Beck's discussion establishes the fact that immigration is above traditional levels (although he never compares it as a percentage of the existing population), which is another discussion altogether.
Specifically, what "strawman arguments" about immigration are you referring to?
Just one example: No one argues for increased immigration out of "compassion" for the Third World, or at least no one I'm aware of. The arguments in favor of open borders are about the business world's perception that the labor market is too tight, based on our sub-5 percent unemployment rate.
Beck never addresses this. At the beginning, he accepts a tight labor market as an unqualified good. What's more, he fails to square our current tight labor market with the out-of-control immigration he describes. How can the two simultaneously exist if Americans are all losing their jobs and wages to immigrants?
The Beck presentation is certainly connected to politics and elections. He starts off by blaming Congress for changing the immigration policy in 1965. He then says that people get angry about these numbers. However, they should not be angry with the immigrants. He says that no Congressional action should be taken until they review his charts. Beck clearly blames Congress for our current situation. They are the ones ignoring the popular will of the American people. It is only Congress that change the current glide path we are now on.
Beck's discussion establishes the fact that immigration is above traditional levels (although he never compares it as a percentage of the existing population), which is another discussion altogether.
I don't know how important that fact is. Percentages are less important than acutal numbers. But here are the facts about legal immigration:
Legal immigration alone in the 1990s likely matched or exceeded the previous historical peak decade of 1901-1910, when 8.8 million legal immigrants were admitted. Adding the settlement of illegal aliens makes the 1990s without doubt the period of greatest immigration in America's history.
The present level of immigration is significantly higher than the average historical level of immigration. This flow may be attributed, in part, to the extraordinary broadening of U.S. immigration policy in 1965. Since 1970, more than 30 million legal and illegal immigrants have settled in the U.S., representing more than one-third of all people ever to come to America's shores.
At the peak of the Great Wave of immigration in 1910, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. was less than half of what it is today, though the percentage of the population was slightly higher. The annual arrival of 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants, coupled with 750,000 annual births to immigrant women, is the determinate factor— or three-fourths— of all U.S. population growth.
The foreign-born population of the United States is currently 33.1 million, equal to 11.5 percent of the U.S. population. Of this total, the Census Bureau estimates 8-9 million are illegal immigrants. Other estimates indicate a considerably higher number of illegal immigrants.
Just one example: No one argues for increased immigration out of "compassion" for the Third World, or at least no one I'm aware of.
The Catholic Church for one. La Raza for another. It is also the reason we have the Diversity Visa Lottery Program, which issues 50,000 permanent resident visas. Here are the countries and number of visas for 2007 Notice that Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Ukraine receive high allocations.
The arguments in favor of open borders are about the business world's perception that the labor market is too tight, based on our sub-5 percent unemployment rate.
No serious person I am aware of proposes "open borders." Our unemployment rate has not always been under 5 percent since 1965 nor will it be in the future. Tight labor markets also mean higher wages for employees except if you can develop a source of cheap labor and exploit it. The median household income has actually been declining from 1999 to 2005. I believe that illegal immigration has contributed to that decline. That said, I am all in favor of recruiting the skills we need to compete in the world economy. I am not against raising the H1B visa levels. We need highly skilled and educated immigrants, which we select. We don't need the poor and uneducated from Latin America, who select themselves to come here.
Without immigration, the US would be suffering from negative population growth like most of Western Europe and Japan. We just need to control the numbers and types of immigrants. In 30 years, we have added about 100 million people to our population. The next 100 million will take less than that.
Beck never addresses this. At the beginning, he accepts a tight labor market as an unqualified good. What's more, he fails to square our current tight labor market with the out-of-control immigration he describes. How can the two simultaneously exist if Americans are all losing their jobs and wages to immigrants?
Our current tight labor market really exists at the top and bottom of the economic ladder. The median wage has been falling. Economic cycles come and go. Our immigration policy has not changed since 1965. What happens when the unemployment rate goes up? There is no relationship to our immigration policy.
A tight labor market can hamper the expansion of businesses and growth. It can also raise wages. The interests of business don't necessarily coincide with the long term interests of the US in terms of immigration policy. Who is the Cheap Labor Lobby?
What is happening in America is that a plentiful source of cheap labor is depressing wages. This lowers the costs of good and services to the consumer, but it also creates greater disparities in the distribution of wealth. This is the third world model. The Dems are seizing on this issue with Jim Webb leading the way.
Beck's presentation is basically about the numbers. Forget about economics and contemplate the overall impact upon our country and its future. Look at the Rector Study to see how the Senate bill will impact on raising the legal immigration numbers even more. Beck's point is that we can't absorb the numbers under legal immigration, let alone those coming from illegal immigration. Samuelson's What You Don't Know About the Immigration Bill makes a similar point.
Anyone who believes that immigration, legal and illegal, will not be major political issue is in for a rude awakening.
This is all policy stuff, though. Maybe someday it will matter politically. Our discussion from before was about immigration and how it affected the 2006 election. It's a different topic.
We will agree to disagree. No need to go around this tree again. Have a good one.
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