Thread: WSJ: Fallout's Just Begun from Bill's Failure (McCain)

Fallout's Just Begun From
Immigration Bill's Failure
By JOHN HARWOOD
June 30, 2007; Page A2

John McCain heads to Iraq next week, to celebrate July 4 by helping to swear in re-enlisting soldiers. After the political fire he endured in America's immigration debate, that may feel like a backyard barbecue.

The Arizona senator stands as the most obvious loser from Washington's botched attempt to overhaul the immigration laws. Once the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. McCain has seen his poll numbers dwindle as conservative activists cried "amnesty" over the bipartisan legislation he co-sponsored that offered a path to citizenship for people here illegally. His campaign blames fallout over the issue for contributing to his lagging fund-raising.

Yet the measure's defeat at least provides Mr. McCain some respite from the issue as he works the primary-campaign trail over the next few months. For the other immigration-debate losers, the problems have only begun.

One of them is President Bush. Virtually every major domestic priority of his second term has now come to naught: no new immigration policy, no Social Security solution, no tax-system overhaul. Continued trade expansion remains highly vulnerable. And defections within his own party on Iraq reached new levels even before the immigration fight had ended.

Of course, Mr. Bush's political clout has long been draining away, and he will never be on the ballot again. That isn't true, however, of Democratic congressional leaders. They represent the third big loser.

Democrats won both houses of Congress in the 2006 elections in part by arguing that Republicans were incompetent to govern. On immigration, they enjoyed a comparatively united party and cooperation from a Republican White House. More than any other factor, heat from the right killed the bill. But voters elect congressional majorities to solve problems, and Democratic incumbents can expect to pay some price every time they fail.

But that fallout almost certainly will pale alongside the damage to future Republican presidential candidates. Hispanics represent the fastest-growing chunk of the U.S. electorate. Their choices help drive the rising swing states of presidential politics: Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.

The immigration debate also exacerbates the split between Republican social and economic conservatives. The former won the legislative debate. The latter, in industries such as agriculture, construction and tourism that employ a lot of undocumented people, are left to face the rising heat but no path toward legalization for workers the American economy plainly can't do without.

Mr. McCain may now get a break from the encounters that have lately haunted his campaign journey, with residents of states such as Iowa voicing fear about changes immigrants have brought to their small-town culture. But for whoever wins the Republican nomination, the path to the White House has almost certainly grown steeper.

Write to John Harwood at john.harwood@wsj.com3

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_pr ... 53535.html

Hispanics represent the fastest-growing chunk of the U.S. electorate.

I guess when you let millions of them illegally migrate here each year, you should expect that.

So the solution is to give them citizenship? Is anybody paying any attention to the type of governments that are getting elected south of our border by the relatives of our "migrants"?

Think far left wing/Marxist. But supposedly, once we legalize them, they'll all turn out to vote for conservative Republicans.

The stupidity in this "debate" just keeps increasing day by day.

That is the central reason McCain was pushing for amnesty. Why do you think Senior Boosh was in bed with Vincente and the Mexico's current Moolah is so boisterous and front and center in our political arena? Promises were made, deals were cut and Mexicans put George HW Boosh in the White house all those years ago. Citizenship to millions of illegals for future decades were part of that deal. Ronnie and Nancy Reagan are longtime members of the CFR which is why the 1986 amnesty occurred as well.