Block that Extrapolation
In a discussion of yesterday’s electoral wins for Democrats in Virginia, this AM’s Washington Post, suggests an uplifting possibility:
Yesterday's initial results showed that a more long-term structural realignment may be occurring and that voters are increasingly drawn by Democrats' promises to improve schools and ease traffic and away from Republican conservatism on such issues as taxes and social policy, particularly in fast-growing Northern Virginia.
The piece stresses the point that those who played the anti-immigration card fared worse than those who stressed better provision of the services people want and need.
I hope that’s true, but I wonder…A few weeks back, the Post drew the opposite lesson from the near defeat of Niki Tsongas in a special Congressional election in Massachusetts. Her Republican opponent chopped away at her lead by attacking her as soft on illegal immigration. That article cites a poll result showing that voters trust Dems and all the issues important to them with one exception: immigration.
Another recent poll had a similar, and to my mind, more threatening finding (see the graph on pg. 7). The pollsters compared the responses of Democratic and Independent voters on why they thought the country was “on the wrong track.” The most pronounced difference was that Independents are much more concerned about “unprotected borders” than Democrats.
So, if you believe that you need these swing voters to win a national election, you might do well to worry about the Democratic candidate handles questions like…oh, I don’t know…drivers licenses for undocumented residents of New York. Unless, that is, you think the nation is much like Virginia was yesterday.
Personally, I’m wary of extrapolating from Congressional districts and local elections to the nation. One can imagine that in local elections, local services loom large. Schools and traffic trump border-control, especially when the border is thousands of miles away. Of course, immigration has huge impacts on local schools as well, but local voters may be taking a pragmatic view of all this: we’re not likely to engage in massive deportation so we’d better come up with more positive solutions to the challenges of integration.
On the other hand, the national election could end up as more of a referendum on immigration policy. And Democrats can’t duck this one. They need a clear message. I’ve said what I think it should be here and here. What do you think?
Comments (12)
Immigration policy, especially this driver's licenses for illegal immigrants (why not just put drivers licenses into boxes of cereal and let the consumers fill them out?), is going to be the flag-burning issue of 2008. The Dems better be ready for it or they'll get hammered.
November 7, 2007 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
LongTom is spot-on, especially in the Midwest battleground states. The mostly unspoken element of racism aggravates this issue, too, in a way that really hurts Democrats. BUT it must be realized that there are many non-racially-prejudiced people who are panicked and angry at the seemingly unstoppable wave of undocumented workers.
Solutions are not simple. I don't like the idea of a national identity card---such a card, and the accompanying database, in the hands of the criminal fascisti who hold power in this country, is a chilling thought. Already, we have Gestapo-like "ID checks" being conducted. My daughter was riding Amtrak recently when the train was halted and the Border Patrol went through it, demanding to see identifications, and harassing Hispanic passengers.
That's unAmerican, in my book. Sealing the borders also has police-state overtones---what with the drug witch hunt and the terror war, it's nasty and vicious enough already.
Revising foreign trade policies and combating nefarious effects of globalization would help, but won't happen.
Well, we could try the "we're almost all 'immigrants'" rhetoric--assertively--as a short-term fallback while brainstorming to find a convincing policy solution---constrained of course by the need to translate it into a catchy two-word or three-word sound-bite.
November 7, 2007 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you are reading way too much into those poll results. Being in favor of "protecting our borders" is not the same as being against reaonsable, controlled immigration.
It was terribly worded question, yet it seems to have Jared (and the blog TAPPED) all up in arms.
November 7, 2007 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good point, brewmn. I think it is reasonable to take the response to mean what you say it means: reasonable people believe we need to control the border by reasonable means. For me, that's neither a wall nor vigilantes, but it is an identification system administered by employers (see link to TomPaine.com piece).
In fact, I don't believe we can have a useful policy debate about paths to citizenship until we control immigrant flows into the country (which is what I take it you mean by "controlled immigration").
That said, I take from your response that you don't think Dems are partiularly vulnerable to anti-immigration arguments? What makes you think so?
November 7, 2007 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
November 7, 2007 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I personally feel that issues like immigration breed in places with no light and lot's of fertilizer (ignorance). It's maddening to me how so many people think that saying "damn those immigrants" will somehow explain and fix what ails us.
I for wish people would not use immigration for political purposes. While it may be expeditious to do so, I think it's fundamentally wrong as it is simply throwing people to the lions in order to satiate the bloodlust of the mob. It certainly appears to me that Republicans have been successfully and unapologetically doing this because it's both easy and beneficial for them to do so. It's also shameless and insulting. It is so because it focuses people's ignorance onto "foreigners" who are a ripe target for what people love to do - hate & blame. As an added bonus it also places that blame for how difficult many people find just getting by to be now onto those same "foreigners". It's all their fault! There is no shortage of chuckles and cackles amongst the Republicans as the public gladly points it's scornful finger at immigrants because it's those same Republicans that have had a heavy hand in making things so much worse for people. Classic deflection. Is this a Democratic weakness? Only if they continue to sit on their arses and allow ignorance to dictate the conversation. If they'd educate people to the real factors involved in these issues maybe we could begin to make some headway. Until then the Republicans, and ignorance, will win the day.
I agree with you here Jared, this is (or should be) the front line in dealing with this issue. But it's also precisely why there's been no progress on it at all...ever, nor will there likely be any. It's the employers who are the biggest part of the problem. Cheap labor. No benefits. It's an employers dream. They will NEVER get on board with something that would threaten their profitability, certainly not willingly. And they have legions of Lobbyists in Washington right now working feverishly to ensure that fact is not forgotten.
November 7, 2007 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I take from your response that you don't think Dems are particularly vulnerable to anti-immigration arguments? What makes you think so?"
I don't think all of the concern for Dems on this issue is warranted because I just don't see a huge anti-immigrant backlash in the general population. The folks for whom this is the No. 1 issue are not going to vote for Democrats anyway. This issue has been driven by the Rush Limbaugh wing of the Republican Party because the Big Islamofascist Scare lost its traction.
As to proof I'm correct, I think the election of 2006 strongly supports my opinion on this matter. The Repubs played the dirty brown immigrant card then, and got wiped out.
This is not to say that an extremely pro-immigration position couldn't hurt the Democrats. But, as evidenced by Clinton's wobbly answer to the drivers license question, I don't see any major candidate advocating an open border policy.
If you throw in a little border security and get tough on employer rhetoric, I think the Democrats will be inoculated against soft on illegal immigration charges. The "ship them all back to Mexico" crowd wouldn't vote Dem anyway.
November 7, 2007 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep--the folks who benefit from cheap, undocumented work aren't anxious to change anything.
But the dysfuntionality of the current system may force change. There are too many localities struggling with this and inventing their own solutions to a problem which is national in scope.
The compromise will have to be between those in the broad middle--neither xenophobes nor status quo types. The deal will have to find an acceptable path to legal status/citizenship for those here already, and enforceable controls on future flows.
And there are enough of us around who remember the last reform, back in 1986, that failed because we never took steps to control the flows. If you nod and wink at that one, there can be no reform.
November 7, 2007 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right in both that it's a national problem and that many localities are struggling with their own Band-Aid fixes.
But what I worry about is that with the near extinction of the mom & pop economic infrastructure and in it's place we have the Wal-Mart's and the like that the power to ultimately implement change is no longer in the hands of the locals. That power was seceded to the giants in exchange for low prices and all those choices on things they don't really need.
November 7, 2007 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bernstein might want to imagine what's going to happen if people start doing what I suggest here. The positions of almost all of the front-runners are so weak that someone who's familiar with this issue and is able to ask one or more real questions can help discredit a candidate and show that they aren't thinking things through and/or they're completely corrupt.
The only silver bullet for the Democratic Party is to stop supporting and enabling illegal immigration. (Rest assured, I can provide endless examples on request.)
November 9, 2007 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: I don't like the idea of a national identity card---such a card, and the accompanying database, in the hands of the criminal fascisti who hold power in this country, is a chilling thought.
Why? The government already has the IRS and Social Security databases at their disposal. A National ID database would not give them any information they don't already possess.
November 11, 2007 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you typed a lot of words without really
achieving a hard-and-fast position on the issue,
I think that continued waffling on illegal immigration sends exactly the wrong message,
when it looks as though they might be able
to lobby up even sans voting rights and achieve
basically forced entry as undeportable, then
in effect the immigration system has been
kicked over, and is leaking Precious Bodily Fluids etc. And, that's about where it seems
to have stopped, today, with politicos unwilling
or unable to come to a conclusion on it, and
meanwhile probably this year alone another
million people just kind of showed up.
Well, no matter which country you talk about,
there's two issues that could be talked about
in regard to illegal immigration:
1) imported politics. If our own domestic
dysfunction wasn't enough, prepare for an
endless wave of individual 'lobbyists' who
are going to spend their time, effort, and
money trying to achieve political and economic
advantage for their compatriots and home
country.
2) Imported crime. What's illegal in one country
might not be illegal in another country, and
folks that just show up might not quite understand or for that matter even respect the
difference.
It's my belief that Mexico spends a fair amount
of time, effort, and energy basically trying
to vote itself into the United States in toto,
rather than deal with their problems independently. Time will tell how it all works
out, but if you don't 'se, habla espanol', yet,
might be a good time to learn, because by
the time Congress makes a call on this, likely
you'll have a couple more spanish-speaking
neighbors than you used to...
November 11, 2007 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink