Archive for the 'Immigration' Category

I have said before that I wanted to write a post on “100 Reasons that McCain will Never be President.”  It would simply be too wearisome to write, but I will give a little primer on this subject as well as a few links that may clear up some things.

First, read a commentary out of the L.A. Times (hat tip to Polipundit) entitled “The hunt for the real McCain.”  Then, go over and look at a Slate commentary entitled “The Closet McCain.”  Then, go read Mark Levin’s “John McCain, Weak on Defense.”  Finally, go read “The Liberal Case for McCain.”

Here are some points to ponder for anyone who truly considers themselves to be conservative:

1. He is in favor of government-funded embryonic stem-cell research.
2. He has said, “certainly in the short term or even in the long term, I would not support the repeal of Roe vs. Wade.”
3. With Joe Lieberman he co-sponsored legislation to close the gun-show loophole and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in compliance with Kyoto accords.
4. He was one of only six Republican Senators to vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment.
5. He betrayed his party to join the so-called “gang of fourteen” to end the filibuster threat of judicial nominees.
6. He supported the Dubai port deal.
7. He was the father of the manifestly unconstitutional campaign finance reform.
8. He is an open-border advocate (i.e., he favors the amnesty program and increased legal immigration, legal immigration that in the end would make illegal immigration unnecessary, another way of saying that he supports the Senate immigration bill).
9. He has led an effort to diminish the traditional war-power authority of the President.
10. He is no friend of religious conservatives, having said that he would kick the religious-right leaders “right in the ass.”

Well, this is only ten reasons John McCain will never be President (i.e., he will not get the Republican nomination — ever).  I’m winded now, so I will catalogue the other 90 reasons for a later time.

Byron York has this rundown of a recent Gallup Poll:

Gallup has released its yearly racial breakdown on George W. Bush’s job approval rating.  (Getting such a breakdown requires a larger polling sample than Gallup’s ordinary surveys.)  The poll shows in the last two years, Bush’s ratings have remained virtually unchanged among blacks and Hispanics; it is among non-Hispanic whites that the president’s ratings have fallen significantly.

Non-Hispanic Whites           Approve            Disapprove
June 8-25, 2006                          42                   53
June 6-25, 2005                          47                   48
June 9-30, 2004                          61                   38

Blacks
June 8-25, 2006                          15                   78
June 6-25, 2005                          16                   77
June 9-30, 2004                          16                   79

Hispanics
June 8-25, 2006                          38                   53
June 6-25, 2005                          41                   49
June 9-30, 2004                          40                   52

The numbers suggest that Bush’s ratings among blacks and Hispanics fell to the floor between June 2003 and June 2004.  Among blacks, Bush fell from 32 percent approval in June 2003 to 16 percent in June 2004.  Among Hispanics, Bush fell from 67 percent approval to 40 percent in the same period. (Among non-Hispanic whites, Bush fell from 69 percent to 61 percent in that time frame.) 

Apparently, the gushing that Bush has done over Hispanics had no effect and is having no effect.  The GOP does not have the Hispanic heart.  It is because, as I have tried to point out in the past, the Hispanic is coming to the U.S. with a completely different political paradigm.  They are socialist in world view, and they do not relinquish that world view just because they are in the U.S.

However, as I also pointed out, the GOP could very well lose the GOP base over the immigration issue, thereby ensuring its own death.  The votes are not there.  They never were, and every word spent on pushing this loser immigration policy is another nail in the coffin of the GOP.

Michelle Malkin has a link to a Washington Times article about the overstatement of the worth of the alleged Hispanic vote, and Michelle observes that this romantic pursuit of the Hispanic vote is “quixotic.”  Quixotic indeed.  Will the GOP leadership see it in time?

Prior:

• http://www.captainsjournal.com/category/immigration/

I just can’t stand watching the Beltway Boys with Fred and Mort any more.  Fred is not conservative, and Mort is not liberal.  They are both rather vanilla, centrist pundits who make rather vanilla, centrist and uninteresting observations.  When discussing the Utah congressional primary contest between Chris Cannon and John Jacob a few days ago (the race that saw Tom Tancredo weigh in and donate money), both Fred and Mort opined that if a district as conservative as this cannot put an immigration-control candidate in office, then no district can.  Thus, the so-called “comprehensive” solution was the winner (I just hate that term “comprehensive” when referring to immigration; it is so dishonest.  It doesn’t mean “comprehensive.”  It means amnesty for those who are here and legal immigration to an extent that would make illegal immigration unnecessary).  So with a shrug of the shoulders and ten seconds of talky-talk, both pundits dismissed this vote as a non-starter.

In fact, I don’t think Mort and Fred could have missed the boat any more than they did on this issue.  Consider.  A district which has an otherwise unobjectionable candidate (Cannon) votes 44.1% to overthrow the incumbent (who was also supported by Bush) over a single issue — immigration, and this with a candiate who has made some significant political errors.

Now the GOP has to wonder if it will be able to mobilize a large percentage of its base (and its more conservative part of the base, I might add).  The inability to mobilize the base will be lethal to the party.  If Jacob had gotten 5% of the vote, it might have been an interesting little sidebar tidbit for political junkies ten years from now to discuss when playing political trivia.  If Jacob had gotten 20% of the vote, the GOP’ers at headquarters should be worrying over what had gone so wrong and whether they will be able to mobilize the base.

But Jacob got 44% of the vote.  In political terms, this is a seismic event.

Prior:

• Twelve posts on immigration.

***** UPDATE *****

I think that the usually brilliant Michael Barone is dead wrong on this.  I don’t think that there is life in the “compromise” plan.  But as always from Barone, a good read.

Read here.

***** SCROLL FOR UPDATES *****

Here I addressed the increase in voters who will vote socialist policies into place.  After quoting from “Contours of the Mexican Left,” I said:

The coming years will see a cataclysmic shift in the political scene in America with the addition of millions of voters who have been trained to believe that they are “oppressed� by the bourgeois elite and who, by the gift of a vote, will then be empowered to take from the middle class the things that they see as rightfully theirs.

I made the case in this commentary that the U.S., by the absurd immigration policy accidentally or intentionally enacted over the last two decades, will sustain the influx of millions of voters, many or most of whom will vote socialist in their world-view.  The Center for Immigration Studies has yet another political effect of immigrants, both legal and illegal.  They say:

It is important, then, when making decisions regarding immigration policy, to take into account not only the economic, fiscal, cultural, and demographic impacts of immigration, but also the political impact, part of which is the realignment of power in Congress away from states receiving relatively few immigrants. In addition to this realignment, careful consideration should also be given to the loss of representation suffered by citizens in low-immigration states. Trying to deal with this problem by excluding non-citizens, legal or illegal, would be very difficult politically and is probably impossible as a practical matter. Moreover, it would result in many years of litigation as the courts determined its constitutionality. Encouraging legal immigrants who are not citizens to naturalize would help to alleviate at least some of the problem. Of course, increased naturalizations would have no impact on the problem created by the presence of illegal aliens. In addition, as long as one million or more new legal immigrants are allowed in annually, the non-citizen population will always be very large even if new immigrants naturalize as soon as they reach the five-year time requirement. 

The central thesis of the paper is that House (of Representatives) reapportionment will not only cause a significant shift in politics due to the lose and gain of seats in the House, it already has.  This is a run-down of all House seats redistributed due to all non-citizens in 2000:

Loss of 1 (-1): Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, Wisconsin.

Gains: California (+6), Florida (+1), New York (+1) and Texas (+1).  California gains this way.  As my friend intimates at “Cop the Truth,” ‘living in the occupied terrirories of southern California’, a gain by California is a gain by socialism.

So while I pointed out a coming shift in the long-term political landscape from immigration of socialists from Mexico, the Center for Immigration Studies shows us a real, short term effect that has already been realized.

Yet we keep it up.  It is simply unfathomable.

Update #1: Courtesy of John Hawkins at Right Wing News:

“Local police said they intercepted 20 illegal Mexican immigrants, but were ordered by immigration officials to let them go free.

Belmont County Sheriff Fred Thompson said his officers were instructed by federal immigration services to let all 20 illegal immigrants go free, and said his department has no choice but to follow the orders from immigration officials.”

I have said it before.  It is all about the vote.  We are watching the creation of a new welfare state — one in which the ultimate goal is to pay off the Hispanic vote with subsidies, welfare, medicaid, tuition grants, and every other way the federal government can find to spread its largesse around to garner votes.  The feds do not want to stop immigration — legal or illegal — because it creates new votes.  The goal is to make sure that the “other side” does not pick up those votes.  It is politics about as crude, crass and ugly as can be imagined.  It completely ignores the good of America in favor of the good of those in power.

Elsewhere, using Phyllis Schlaffly, I wrote about crass politics and the Hispanic vote. Now, hat tip to Kathryn Jean Lopez over at the Corner (NRO), here is confirmation. Does this just make you sick, or what? Sigh … [the Captain’s head shakes sadly … he wonders how this could be happening in America … and what kind of country he is turning over to his children and grandchildren]

From an April 2, 2006, article in the Los Angeles Times (bold is mine):

During the 2000 election, Bush previewed a campaign video from ad-maker Lionel Sosa that used emotion-laden themes to woo Latinos.

As he watched, Sosa recalled, Bush’s face lighted up. “How much do you need for this?” Bush asked as the two men sat with Rove in the governor’s mansion in Texas, Sosa said.

Sosa replied that it would take $3 million. According to the ad-maker, Bush then turned to Rove, saying: “Give him five.”

Four years later, Sosa produced a variation of that video for the 2004 campaign that was mailed to Latino voters across the country.

The video includes images that would probably rile those who today are calling for the most restrictive immigration laws. At one point, Bush is shown waving a Mexican flag. The footage was shot, Sosa said, during a Mexican Independence Day parade in San Antonio in 1998, when Bush was running for reelection as governor.

The five-minute video, narrated by Bush, opens with an image of him fishing on his property near Crawford, Texas, as he essentially described millions of Americans who populate his home state as the true foreigners in someone else’s native land.

“About 15 years before the Civil War, much of the American West was northern Mexico,” Bush says in the video. “The people who lived there weren’t called Latinos or Hispanics. They were Mexican citizens, until all that land became part of the United States.

“After that, many of them were treated as foreigners in their own land,” Bush adds.

He says the “Latino spirit” was fueled by “strong conservative values” of family, a strong work ethic, faith in God, patriotism and personal responsibility. “These values are my values,” Bush says. “I live by them, and I lead by them.”

As Bush speaks in the video, the background music — a Latin beat — grows louder. The president is pictured waving the Mexican flag, hugging a Latino woman, and then holding a Latino baby.

Political strategists in both parties said the video illustrated how Bush, unlike other Republicans, had forged a personal relationship with Latino voters largely on his ability to convey empathy and invite them into his party.