Immigration and Zero-Sum Competition
I tend to think Greg Anrig's right and Amy Sullivan's wrong in that Democratic messaging and tactics on the question of Iraq remain pretty confused and ineffective. Greg's take on the immigration question, however, strikes me as an example of exactly the sort of unduly critical analysis that Amy's trying to combat. Nothing Greg says is untrue, but his take doesn't seem to appreciate that political competition is fundamentally zero-sum. The immigration debate is playing out in a way that doesn't make either party look really hot, but I think it's pretty clear that the GOP is feeling more pain. And in a zero-sum game, that's all that really matters -- only one party can win the election, and on this issue is working out in a way that favors Democrats even though it creates awkward questions for both political coalitions. That's pretty savvy leadership even if things haven't been going perfectly.
Politics is zero sum only if policy is irrelevant and winning elections is the only thing that matters. Which would mean there is little reason to care who wins.
April 8, 2006 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Matt,
I don't think zero-sum is a helpful lens for viewing political debates, as opposed to elections (though it's not terribly enlightening about elections, either). With debates, the question is whether the public perceived your arguments to be clear and compelling. You can win by losing in debates if the public perceives that you fought the good fight. The immigration debate presented an opportunity for Dems to clarify where they stand in big-picture terms relative to Republicans. That opportunity was, I think, largely squandered. So even though you are right that Republicans were hurt to some extent by the way things played out, it didn't help Democrats commensurately or nearly as much as it might have because their identity remains largely undefined. So you can say on net, we came out ahead-- their pain is our gain. But those gains aren't meaningful or lasting from the standpoint of the most important task, which is regaining public support for progressive government.-- Greg
April 8, 2006 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Republicans' loss does not automatically turn into the Democrats' gain. The Republican talking point painting Democrats as pro-illegal immigrant at the expense of citizens went unchallenged.
April 9, 2006 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
As an example of how little any of us out here, or at least I, actually knows about a hot political issue, illegal immigration in this case, a member of Congress on a news program this morning said that 40% of the 11 million or so illegals in this country did not come "over the wall", they are here because they are over-staying their visas. So much for the "wall" argument which leads the public to believe that a "wall" will keep out illegals.
April 9, 2006 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, and that's also the point picked up by the lazy press who don't bother to take the time to determine what was actually in the bill and whether the actual bill was any good.
Still, at least the Dems didn't make the same mistake they did on Iraq or Medicare Part D, i.e., get stampeded into a mistake.
April 9, 2006 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since we also don't know who the 11 million illegals are or where they are, we can't possibly know how they got here. All talk of forcing them out of the country is just talk - force who out of the country? We don't really even know that 11 million people, whom we don't know and whom we don't know where they are, even exist. It may be 11,000 people or 1000 for that matter. It just makes for a more scary story if we pretend that we know that 11 million potential terrorists (BS) are in the country illegally. This whole subject is a crock!
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 9, 2006 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
linden wrote, "The Republican talking point painting Democrats as pro-illegal immigrant at the expense of citizens went unchallenged."
So what is the dem position on immigration? I've followed the debate pretty closely and I can't recall any democrat taking a prominent role in the debate. Seems to me like the players are Tancredo, McCain, Spector, and Frist, with a few other republicans thrown in.
Fact is, Dems don't know crap from applebutter on this subject because the issue crosses all their wires. On one hand, they are trained to place minorities on a pedestal, so bad-talking latinos is wrong. On the other hand, allowing illegal immigrants to push out what's left of their union blue collar support is bad too. What to do? It appears that their plan is to remain silent and hope the Repubs step on their dorks. Which is possible.
Here's the thing though: there is a serious populist wind a'blowin on the right in this country at the present moment. The reason the Senate backed off the compromise proposal is because millions of voters called their senator to protest, not because of any wrangling over amendments. (Repub senators would love to grant an amnesty, by the way. Their big money supporters demand it and a lot of money is on the line. But they can't risk losing an election either.) Democrats, in my opinion, would be doing their country a favor by getting ahead of this issue and demanding strict enforcement of immigration law, a wall on our southern border, and national I.D. system for employment verification. If it comes from the Dems, it would break the illegal immigrant exploitation industrial complex that currently grips repubs (and dems to a lesser extent). It would also serve to short circuit the inevitable populist hard right backlash that would result from an amnesty.
Look, you might not like a wall or a national ID, or the minutemen, but you're going to get them. The question is, do you want a Democrat calling the shots or Tom Tancredo? Right now, is seems Dems think that when the train runs off the tracks they will be standing pretty as the only alternative, but the real result may be a country tilted far more right than it is now.
April 9, 2006 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
MacBrvs94,
I am a non-liberal but I visit this site occasionally. I found your analysis compelling enough that I put the whole thing on my site in a post.
I think that the Democrats, for years now, should have been raising this issue of how illegal immigrants are hurting the American working class. But they have remained silent, as you note. Where have they been? How could they have blown off their core constituency?
April 10, 2006 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink