Thread: McCain's Stand & Bilbray's Demagoguery

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...and_on_ca.html

June 04, 2006
McCain's Stand & Bilbray's Demagoguery
By Ruben Navarrette

SAN DIEGO -- Despite some earlier evidence to the contrary, John McCain is careful about the company he keeps.

When the senator from Arizona traveled to Liberty University a few weeks ago to appear at a commencement with the Rev. Jerry Falwell -- a man he once labeled as one of the "agents of intolerance'' -- I worried that the conductor on the Straight Talk Express had lost his way.

Then came news last week that McCain had canceled an appearance at a San Diego fundraiser for former Rep. Brian Bilbray, the Republican nominee in a nationally watched June 6 runoff election to replace Randy "Duke'' Cunningham, who is in prison for taking bribes.

I wouldn't call Bilbray an agent of intolerance. He's more an agent of opportunism. While in Congress from 1995 to 2001, and later as a lobbyist and national co-chairman of the anti-immigrant outfit, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, Bilbray has milked the immigration issue dry.

Bilbray's opponent is Democrat Francine Busby, who supports the bipartisan immigration reform plan that McCain helped hammer out with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and which serves as the heart of the legislation approved by the Senate last week.

For that, Busby has been hammered by Bilbray, who opposes attempts to offer legal status to any illegal immigrant in the United States.

"No amnesty" is a reasonable position. What it is not is a solution.

Hard-liners such as Bilbray are good at sound bites and bumper-sticker slogans. They just don't have a good answer to the big question: What do we do with the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants?

All they have is this quaint theory that if we crack down on employers, let local cops enforce immigration law, or put troops on the border -- all of which Bilbray supports -- illegal immigrants will find it so inhospitable here that they will simply self-deport.

It could happen -- as soon as hardened criminals self-arrest, self-convict and self-imprison.

Bilbray also wants to build a 2,000-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, and deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants -- unworkable and un-American ideas that even the House Republican leadership wanted nothing to do with.

In fact, Bilbray brags that while in Congress, he wrote legislation to limit "birthright citizenship" only to the children of U.S. citizens and legal residents and combat what right-wingers call "anchor babies.''

The assumption is that people risk their lives to have babies on U.S. soil so the infants are first in line at the welfare office. That's dumb. If you want to know what keeps illegal immigrants in this country, it's not anchor babies. It's "anchor jobs'' provided by U.S. employers, many of them Republicans.

Big-name Republicans have stumped for Bilbray. They included Vice President Dick Cheney, even though Bilbray had told USA Today that the Bush administration was permitting illegal immigration and that President Bush himself "ought to be investigated for not enforcing immigration laws on employers.''

Enter John McCain, who was scheduled to speak at a breakfast fundraiser for Bilbray last week that was supposed to raise $65,000 for what is now a close race with Busby.

Exit John McCain. In a last-minute e-mail to the Bilbray campaign, a McCain spokesman noted that the two men "disagree on some of the issues related to immigration reform.'' And, the spokesman said, McCain wanted to "avoid distracting'' from the event.

Bilbray supporters called the snub petty and vindictive.

It wasn't. It was principled, honest and morally consistent. How could McCain have appeared at a fundraiser for someone who has tried to get political mileage from blasting a major McCain initiative? Talk about awkward. The senator was right to stay away.

As for Bilbray, there is something about how he toys with the immigration issue that creeps me out. Maybe it's that he feeds the culture clash, as when he put this question to voters: "Is it important enough to make sure your grandchildren learn Spanish because they want to -- or because they have to?'' Or that he's more showman than statesman, as when he sued California's universities for allegedly discriminating against his college-age children by requiring them to pay out-of-state tuition (since they lived in Virginia) while allowing illegal immigrants (who lived in California) to pay in-state.

It's fine to be an opponent of illegal immigration. But somewhere along the line, Brian Bilbray became a crusader. Then, he morphed into a zealot. And, frankly, on this explosive issue, Congress has enough of those already.
ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/wa...4campaign.html

In California, Democrats Try First Step to Win Back House

By CARL HULSE
Published: June 4, 2006

SAN DIEGO, June 3 — In the first major Congressional race of what could be a politically volatile year, the contest to fill the seat of a jailed Republican is testing whether Democrats can capitalize on Republican unrest in the battle for the House.

Fractures among conservatives in the affluent coastal communities extending north of San Diego — coupled with dissatisfaction with President Bush — have put Democrats within striking distance of capturing a safe Republican seat that was thrown open when Representative Randy Cunningham resigned after pleading guilty to corruption charges.

Though Mr. Bush carried the district, the oceanfront 50th, by 10 points in 2004 and Republicans have a 44 percent to 29 percent edge in voter registration, polls show Brian P. Bilbray, a Republican, and Francine Busby, a Democrat, essentially tied going into Tuesday's special election, which each party is desperate to win.

"It is going to be close," Mr. Bilbray, a former congressman, acknowledged. The campaign will have cost an almost-unheard-of $10 million when spending by the candidates, the national parties and others is totaled.

The election is serving as a laboratory to assess the potency of political appeals that are likely to resonate through November. Mr. Bilbray, noting that the Mexican border is just miles away, is running as a fierce foe of illegal immigration, while he and national Republicans portray Ms. Busby as an advocate of higher taxes and government benefits for those who entered the United States illegally. The ballot lists Mr. Bilbray's occupation as immigration reform consultant.

Ms. Busby, a local school board member who lost decisively to Mr. Cunningham in 2004, has joined national Democrats in pounding Mr. Bilbray for working as a lobbyist after serving in Congress. They have sought to tie him to what Democrats denounce as the institutional corruption defined by Mr. Cunningham's illegal efforts to steer military projects to the firms of lobbyists who rewarded him with payoffs.

"This is ground zero for people who have felt the cost of corruption," said Ms. Busby, who said the sense of betrayal that Republican voters felt over Mr. Cunningham's deeds would win her support. "We are going to see if the people in this district are going to rise up above partisanship and send a message that it is time for a change."

Many analysts describe Ms. Busby as a solid but hardly overwhelming candidate who, in an ordinary year, would have no chance of winning such a Republican-tilted district. But this year, Democrats are energized while some Republicans — turned off by Republican spending and uncertain about the course of the nation under Mr. Bush — are not rallying to their party's candidates.

"I think the whole atmosphere emanating from national politics is really what is keeping her afloat," said Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego. "Democrats are really unhappy and really motivated to get out and vote, and Republicans are not."

Democrats and others say that if a Democratic candidate can pose a legitimate threat in a district like this one, challengers will have even better opportunities in races where the party's edge is much narrower.

"They have to run in quite a few districts in November that are a lot worse for them," said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan Washington-based analyst of Congressional races. "While a Busby win is ominous for Republicans, even if Bilbray squeaks out a win, it is hard for me to see how Republicans can take that as good news."

Ms. Busby is not Mr. Bilbray's only obstacle in the race, which has featured a barrage of negative television commercials by both parties. He is also under fire from a fellow Republican, Bill Hauf, a wealthy real estate investor who is challenging Mr. Bilbray in a separate but simultaneous primary race for a spot on the November ballot to fill the 50th District seat for a full term.

Mr. Hauf has poured some of his money into mailings to Republicans questioning Mr. Bilbray's conservative commitment, an effort that has infuriated local Republican leaders who say the feud could sap critical support from Mr. Bilbray.

"I have come to be the fly in the ointment," said Mr. Hauf, who said he and like-minded Republicans in the district saw Mr. Bilbray as too moderate and tied to the Republican establishment to help turn around a party they view as addicted to higher spending and soft on social issues.

Complicating matters further, Mr. Bilbray is also opposed in the race to fill the seat through the end of the year by William Griffith, an independent who received the endorsement of prominent local anti-immigration leaders, potentially undermining him on his central issue.

Hoping to exacerbate that split, Ms. Busby's campaign on Friday took the unusual step of broadcasting advertisements on conservative radio stations highlighting Mr. Griffith's endorsements — in effect running an advertisement for an opponent in an effort to weaken Mr. Bilbray. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee mailed similar material on Mr. Griffith to Republicans.

Mr. Bilbray said such tactics were deplorable. But he said voter turnout was a genuine concern given Republican frustration with Mr. Bush and the Senate for backing an immigration plan that could lead to citizenship for some illegal immigrants.

"The outrage against the president and the Senate's proposal is so strong that it could cause collateral damage for us," he said.

National Republican officials say they expect that Mr. Bilbray will pull out a victory on Tuesday. They say that they do not see the race as a portent for November and that his struggles are not unusual given the unpredictable nature of special elections. In the closing days, the campaigns were exchanging last-minute attacks with most of their efforts — and those of the national parties — devoted to identifying voters and encouraging them to get to the polls.

Both of the leading contenders to represent a district that is home to some of the best-known surfing beaches in the nation keep surfboards in their campaign headquarters and share an enthusiasm for the sport, which gave Mr. Bilbray an alternative idea for settling the issue.

"If the election is real close," he said, "maybe we can just have a surf-off."