Thread: GOP's Dead-End Debate On Immigration

http://www.jewishpress.com/displayConte ... mmigration

[quote]Political consultants make their money in lots of ways, but one of the key insights into campaigns is not so much about picking candidates as it is in picking issues.

There is little question that most Democrats have assumed that a war that most Americans perceive as a disaster would be the issue on which they could defeat the Republicans in 2008.

Many Republicans assumed that the best chance they had for victory was a candidate who could articulate a case that the Democrats were still too soft on terror to be trusted.

Were they right? Recent events in Iraq, after the success of the troop surge many Democrats opposed, may mean that will be a point which may not work as well for them in the general election. But few Democratic voters care about whether a war they never supported is going better since they just want it to be over, no matter what we leave behind.

The main thing they seem to be looking for in a candidate is his or her ability to win. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama promise victory. The differences between them seem to be more about personality, even though Obama and the other Dems who seek to avert a second Clinton presidency keep flailing away, trying to find some wedge issues.

On the Republican side, things are not quite so well defined.

While electability or opposing the Democrats’ drive to end the war regardless of the consequences may still motivate many Republicans, war and peace don’t seem to be what the 2008 GOP race is about. Instead, immigration and faith seem to be the main talking points.

That has been the inescapable conclusion for anyone who has watched the Republican debates. The two GOP front-runners – former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney – have been sniping at each other incessantly on immigration.

Prior to their running for president, both Giuliani and Romney realized the 10 million to 12 million illegals are an economic and political fact of life. They also used to understand that scapegoating these undocumented migrants – the overwhelming majority of whom came here to work – was something decent Americans just didn’t do.

Both have now rejected the better angels of the Republican nature as articulated by President Bush, who has tried unsuccessfully for years to get Congress to pass guest-worker programs and to find a way to give the illegals a path to citizenship.

Instead, Giuliani and Romney have led a race to the bottom of the political barrel on this point, causing fringe candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo, whose ludicrous call is for all illegals to be deported, to rightly say that it seemed as if both were echoing him.

For those who listen to right-wing talk-radio shows or monitor the GOP blogosphere, this doesn’t come as a surprise. Being “toughâ€

I don't think it's a dead-end debate, it's more of a dead-ON debate.

We, the (American) people, want illegals OUT! What's so hard to understand?

I need to find out if there was an opposing op-ed in there.

If this is the position of the Jewish Press, then it's very disturbing.