You will see folks - including in comments in my last post - repeating the contention that the current wave of anti-immigrant politics is just about being against "illegal immigration," not against immigrants more generally. While a few folks may think they mean it, it's clearly untrue.

Most obviously, unless you support increasing legal immigration to match current levels of undocumented immigration, a crack down on undocumented immigration is support for a net reduction in overall immigration levels. But the harder reality is that the policy attacks on undocumented immigrants inevitably bleed over into attacks on legal immigrants.

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Immigration was the issue that many on the Right-- especially panderers like Romney -- thought would define the 2008 elections. And it was the issue that was supposed to help doom McCain among GOP voters. Instead, it was the issue that in the end probably killed Romney's last hope of getting the nomination. And the GOP will likely nominate one of the key authors of the supposedly hated comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

There is some justice that it was GOP Hispanics who delivered the death blow to Romney. McCain led Romney is a number of demographic groups, but it was Hispanics -- more than veterans or elderly voters -- who gave McCain a disproportionate number of their votes. McCain received 54% of Hispanic voters to the 14% of Hispanics who supported Romney. With Hispanics making up 12% of the GOP primary voters and that difference, doing the math, adds up almost exactly to the overall 5% McCain margin of victory in Florida.

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