http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... /609180382

Candidates in two hotly contested congressional races in the region have kicked off the election season attacking each other on illegal immigration.

Incumbent Republican Congressmen Steve Chabot, of Cincinnati's west side, and Geoff Davis, of Hebron, are touting their own records on illegal immigration and attempting to paint their Democratic opponents as weak on the issue.

Political strategists say it's likely that Republicans are trying to deflect criticism that the GOP-controlled Congress has been unable to find a solution to the illegal alien problem.

Recent arrests across the country of undocumented workers, including in Boone County in Northern Kentucky and Butler County in Ohio, have helped make immigration a hot-button issue - much like gay marriage was in 2004 - that fires up not only social conservatives but many independent voters as well.

"It gets gut-level reaction," said Joe Gershtenson, political science professor at Eastern Kentucky University.

"Because it smacks of this whole notion of patriotism and being a true American, it's going to get some people very riled up."

The week before Labor Day - considered the unofficial start of the campaign season - the Republican Party of Kentucky began sending mailers that accuse Davis opponent Ken Lucas of putting illegal immigrants before American taxpayers.

The two men are locked in a tight race for Kentucky's 4th District congressional seat.

The four mailers - including one sent last week - claim that Lucas voted to give Social Security benefits and food stamps to illegal immigrants and opposed tighter border enforcement programs while he was in Congress.

Jim Kreevy, Lucas' campaign spokesman, said the assertions in the mailers are "distortions, half-truths and, in some cases, flat out lies."

"On a policy perspective, (Davis and Lucas) are not too far apart," he said.

"They are both against amnesty, they are both for increasing border guards, but Davis hasn't gotten any of it done."

Davis spokesman Justin Brasell said: "We could've passed it if more Democrats had supported it"

"Ken Lucas wants to elect a speaker of the House who supports amnesty," Brasell said, referring to California Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

The jabs of the two candidates mirror those being traded in the Ohio 1st District race between Chabot and Cincinnati City Councilman John Cranley.

Chabot's campaign is airing a television commercial this week that touts his record on immigration.

"We believe that this is a significant issue that most people are very concerned with the number of illegal immigrants who are not only in the country, but the number of illegal immigrants who are in Cincinnati and the first district," Chabot campaign spokeswoman Jessica Towhey said.

The issue made headlines in Boone County in May when federal agents and local police swept across Fischer Homes construction sites.

Eventually, nearly 100 people were arrested, most of them workers from Central America accused of being in the U.S. illegally.

But five supervisors for Fischer also were arrested and have pleaded not guilty.

Fischer has denied any wrongdoing.

The arrests have further stirred public sentiment against illegal immigrants in the country.

"We hear quite frequently from people that they are concerned about this issue," Towhey said.

Cranley campaign spokesman Elliott Ruther agreed with the Lucas campaign in saying Republicans are trying to blame their opponents for their own shortcomings.

"They're trying to attack Mr. Cranley even though Mr. Chabot and his fellow party members have been running Congress and the White House during the time that this immigration issue has grown," he said.

Amy Walter, senior editor of the Cook Political Report, a national publication that handicaps political races, said the issue of immigration, particularly as it relates to national security, is being played out by Republicans in several other races across the country.

"Paint the Democrats as liberal on tax-and-spend policies and then not strong enough on security and terrorism," she said.

"Let's try to find a way to feed into already established stereotypes about the two parties."