"We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge" - Barack Obama (aka President Malaise)
Republican Debate On Univision: Pandering Time
By Greg L | 10 December 2007 | National Politics | 43 Comments
We all knew that John McCain wanted to grant amnesty to illegal aliens under the guise of “comprehensive immigration reform”, but to have Rudy Giuliani come out and openly endorse this garbage during last night’s pander-fest of Univision’s presidential debate is pretty appalling. At least we know where he stands when he talks to a different audience — wherever the he thinks the audience wants him to stand. That’s real leadership, folks.
McCain, Giuliani, and perhaps Huckabee have all bought into the insulting notion that the vast majority of Hispanic voters don’t value the rule of law and want to ensure that illegal aliens are granted amnesty. I suppose they also feel that Al Sharpton is the legitimate voice of the monolithic African-American community as well, but since this debate focused on how presidential candidates might benefit this specific ethnic community, such questions were never raised.
Tom Tancredo had the right idea in boycotting this event. Semi-kudos to Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson, who while choosing to participate, at least didn’t try to change their tune to suit this specific audience. As for the rest of this gaggle, I’m rather concerned that they’re falling into the Bill Clinton meme of trying to change their convictions to suit whatever audience they’re in front of. That is, except Ron Paul. He’s still a nutjob, no matter who he’s talking in front of. We’re somehow responsible for creating Hugo Chavez? Gimme a break.
RedState and Babalu have some interesting commentary on this event.
UPDATE: WMAL has a poll up on this, and apparently their readers think that Tancredo made the right choice here:
The GOP held a Spanish-language debate last night that was broadcast on Univision.
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This has always been Guiliani’s position. You’re surprised?
It was a pleasure watching Tim Russert inflict the death blows to his candidacy yesterday on “Meet the Press”.
Pathetic! Securing the borders and what to do with illegal aliens in this country (regardless of nationality/race) should absolutely be two separate issues.
I simply can not understand why there is not univeral agreement in the sequential approach which I call “support American interest”: 1.) Secure the borders, 2.) Adjust immigration quotas as necessary to satisfy American need, 3.) “Fix” procedures for legal immigration as necessary, and 4.) After those measures are complete, determine the best approach in dealing with those who violated our immigration laws which our country did not see fit to enforce.
These are big issues, far too weighty for a single “comprehensive immigration reform” bill…and formation of a NAU is NOT the answer! Immigration and socialism are the two key issues which hang in the balance of the 2008 election.
My vote still goes to Tancredo. He is the only candidate that I trust to secure our borders and stop illegal immigration.
I didn’t see the debate. How did Romney perform?
Any of those Republicans would make fine Presidents except Ron Paul and Tancredo. Tancredo chickened out of the debate and has no business being President. It’s good that he’s quitting congress too.
There is very little to no difference in the long run between a Hillary presidency and a Rudy presidency. In the long run they both believe the federal government is responsible and is the answer for everything. Rudy just uses 9/11 to attempt to trick and scare conservatives into believing he will be tough on terror.
So, when are they going to go on the Russian language channel, or the Hindu channel? What about all the other ethnic channels??? Or, is the GOP pandering to an electorate who will never vote for them based on their stance on immigration???
I’m glad that Tancredo didn’t go. All Presidential debates should be 100% in English. Too bad others didn’t have the guts to make a stand.
John Light,
Only the Spanish speaking will get the attention as usual. The squeeky wheel get the oil. We’ll never see it any other language is my bet. Sounds like pandering to me. IMHO
starryflights,
You are exactly right 100% English. There is a minimal knowledge of the English language required for citizenship. If they are true “American” they would assimilate and speak the language of our land.
Slightly OT, but here is some more pandering - to the U.S. citizen, not illegals. Some REAL info on the REAL Huckabee, from the Arkansas Times - their opinion - Huckabee is so far to the left on illegal immigration, he makes McCain sound like a “nativist”:
Huckabee: Immigrants’ friend
Ernest Dumas
Updated: 12/4/2007
Mike Huckabee’s star may fall as precipitously as it rose in the presidential stakes, but it is time to ask if something mysterious but important is happening in the electorate or if his rise is only evidence of a field of fatally vulnerable candidates.
In the six months between the beginning of the debates and the Iowa caucuses, the only Republican candidate who has not fallen in the estimation of the polls is the one who is inarguably the most liberal and the one who sounds most like a Democrat. Huckabee would dispute that description but it comports with his record in Arkansas and even with his public utterances when he is forced to defend that record and in thoughtful moments far away from the madding crowds of Iowa and South Carolina Republicans.
A month ahead of the caucuses Huckabee is leading the field in Iowa, and he has risen sharply in national polls so that he competes with the incredibly shrinking big four, which has to be a reflection of his glib, witty and saccharine performance in all the debates. It has liberal pundits across the country gushing about what a generous, reasonable and straight-shooting person he is. Those are not adjectives that many in his own party in Arkansas would have applied to the governor even a year ago. The Republican leader of the state Senate once called on him to be kinder in his public remarks about fellow Republicans.
If Republicans are turning to the moderate in a field of sullen men bent on seeing who can be the most reactionary, it is an unusual phenomenon. Republicans suspected they were nominating a liberal in 1952 when they picked Dwight Eisenhower over Mr. Conservative, Robert A. Taft, in the most contentious convention of modern times, but they did so because they thought he could beat the Democrats and that the sainted Taft, who wanted to roll back Social Security and the whole New Deal, couldn’t. But winnability isn’t Huckabee’s secret. The same polls showing him gaining say that Republicans think he would be less likely than others to win.
On the other hand, maybe the conservatives who see him as the truest ideologue just do not know him. His standard stump talk, which you can catch often on C-SPAN, does carry a litany of conservative dogmatisms: lower taxes, smaller government, abortion, gay marriage, and even tough immigration controls.
Huckabee’s immigration stance is at once the most emblematic of his liberal impulses and politically the most paradoxical because immigration is the dominant GOP issue. The campaign of Sen. John McCain, the early front-runner, imploded over his steadfast support of the administration’s humane immigration bill, but Huckabee makes McCain look like a nativist.
Romney tried to nail Huckabee in the last debate for passing a law giving children of illegal immigrants state-paid college scholarships and in-state tuition rates. Huckabee defended it eloquently, pointing out first that it did not become law — the House of Representatives passed it easily but Republicans blocked it in the Senate — and that he wanted to live in a country that did not punish children for the sins of their parents. (He also said the youngsters would have to have applied for citizenship to get a scholarship, which was not true. The bill said youngsters would have to give the college a statement that they intended to seek legal status some day.)
That bill was not an isolated instance. The highlight of his last two years in office was his running war with Republican lawmakers and the “Shiite wing” of his party — his words — over what he called their bigotry and fearmongering over immigration.
He bitterly fought (with Democratic help) a Republican bill restricting government services to U.S. citizens, calling it race baiting and demagoguery, and when the bill failed he condemned a plan to put the same proposal on the ballot and doubted the “Christian values” of the sponsor.
“What this has done is inflamed a whole lot of people’s emotions, making them think we’ve got to rush in and pass some laws to stop some terrible thing going on that isn’t going on,” he said.
But it was going on. At Huckabee’s behest, the state became one of only seven states that used Medicaid money to cover prenatal care for immigrant women because Hispanic women had an unusually high prenatal birth-defect risk.
Over the objections of conservative nativists he worked to get a Mexican consulate in Little Rock to help immigrants with labor problems and getting papers. He condemned federal agents for raiding an Arkadelphia plant and instantly deporting Mexican workers and splitting their families. When a key administration official sent an email with some derogatory doggerel about Hispanic immigrants Huckabee dumped him with the admonition “racial stereotyping by state leaders is simply not funny and must be consequenced.”
In a remarkable talk to the Political Animals Club he said God had given America “a second chance” to do the right thing by treating Hispanics better than it had treated blacks for much of its history.
“One of our greatest challenges is making sure we don’t commit the same mistakes with our growing Hispanic population that we did with African-Americans 150 years ago and beyond,” he said. “I feel the Lord, frankly, has given us a second chance to do better than we did before. I hope we will do that.”
Immigration is supposed to be the wedge issue for Republicans next year. If that’s so, let’s hope that Mike Huckabee is their man.
Sad thing is ya just never quite know what or whom to believe…:(
“Craft before integrity, but have sufficient craft to
produce integrity’s image”
Stanley Fish
Goodness, don’t you love politics?
John Light’s comment re “why not Russian, Hindi (Hindu=religion), etc. is naive. What percentage of the total population speaks those languages compared to Spanish speakers? Common sense should prevail, right?
Krusty,
Not in politics. Common sense seems to be a big drawback.
I still haven’t figured out what winning a primary in Virginia in a presidential contest really does for you. I am sure I will be enlightened though.
Krusty, no, comments like YOURS is naive - those speakers may be fewer in numbers but vote heavier. I believe that “Lafayette(Mistletoe for Dec.)” said it best with the “squeaky wheel.”
Dolph,
It is Virginia’s proximity to DC that makes winning the primary a big deal. NO BODY takes Maryland seriously, I mean come on, ANYONE who keeps electing Ma Mikulski as Senator - lol
As a follow-on, I got distracted when typing and want to clarify something I said. When I wrote, “those speakers may be fewer in numbers but vote heavier.” what I meant was that even if the population in any given area is less, the percentage of those who actually vote more than likely actually are greater than the percentage of Mexicans who vote.
But it seems that the pols only concentrate on the Mexicans who do not really do much except gripe that they do the jobs that Americans won’t vice the Russians, Indians, etc who actually do try and assimilate (as our teachers, cab drivers, scientists, mathematicians, etc.) and no, Krusty, that is NOT a racist statement, that is a statement based on OBSERVATION. If you can show me where Mexicans have made advancements in this country or their own to make this world a better place, I will conceed.
anon quoted Huckabee on 10 Dec 2007 at 10:32 am:
“In a remarkable talk to the Political Animals Club he said God had given America “a second chance” to do the right thing by treating Hispanics better than it had treated blacks for much of its history.
“One of our greatest challenges is making sure we don’t commit the same mistakes with our growing Hispanic population that we did with African-Americans 150 years ago and beyond,” he said. “I feel the Lord, frankly, has given us a second chance to do better than we did before. I hope we will do that.”
HUH??? Ok, doing the math here, 150 years ago and beyond…is Mike saying that we made a mistake in FREEING the blacks from slavery??? Maybe I am reading this wrong and he means 150 + years ago. All that being said, what is Mike’s opinion on the blacks who sold the other tribes to the Americans as slaves? Wonder if he believes THEY owe any restitution??? Last time I checked, America has given blacks MUCH more than ANY nation EVER did in the history of the world. Sure, slavery is an institution what outlived ANY usefullness by centuries, but puleeze!!!
Huckabee would make a fine President.
Quotes pandering to the illiterati do not a president make, hence why Barrak Obamanation and Her Royal Communist (HRC) will NEVER be accepted with people of intelligence.
What makes a good president is not looks, nor diction.
What MAKES a good president is someone who stands by his convictions, does not bow to polls, rather sticks his guns to what is right or what is wrong. Someone who knows that if they are to TRULY dissolve the IRS they should champion a flat tax and completely do away with the minimum wage.
I care when the president gets a $600 haircut that actually costs millions (?) more due to re-routed air traffic (both commercial as well as FedEx, UPS and USPS mail).
I care when a president is asking his secret service to warn him when his wife is coming down the hallway (Lyndon B. Johnson) or when the presiden’t wife demands from the Secret Service to carry their luggage (HRC). When the President treats his security detail like second class citizens, how do you think he is about you or me???
I do not want a president who loathes the military or believes that if you can’t get a job anywhere else, the military is a good final option. I have problems with a politician who, for sake of attempting to win votes to secure his nomination panders to illegal aliens and their ilk.
The Office of the President of the United States is too important to give to someone who does not understand that NO NATION IN HISTORY has EVER been taxed into prosperity. Look at Europe - their quality of life has DECREASED in the past 10 years!!! This nation has enemies who have watched the US from afar. They are LOOKING and WAITING for that moment of weakness. They THOUGHT they had it during the first year of Bush’s first administration. They were wrong. Diplomacy has failed and will continue to fail when dealing with people who WANT to die.
The more I look at the state of affairs and some of the postings on here (but mostly on NLS and those who hunt and peck over there), the more I feel that we are in the end times of the Roman Empire. It’s time we take things seriously and one of the FIRST ways to ensure this is to take our PRIMARY’s seriously and dems stay away from republicans and vice versa. Republicans: Let the Democrats choose who they may in an untarnished Convention. Democrats, please afford us the same courtesy. Then, the two victors go head to head and the best candidate wins. None of this YouTube crap questions about whether or not you support “the flag” or some gay former general having her (yes, I know the sex of the person) 15 minutes of fame. Let’s be serious for a moment, children, and we JUST might get a president who, while we may or may not agree with, we can say that they won far and square. We owe it to the candidate and we owe it to ourselves.
Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates
International
12/6/2007
Iowa
w/o Newt Gingrich
Margin of Error = 5.8% [?]
Mike Huckabee 39%
Mitt Romney 17%
Fred Thompson 10%
Rudy Giuliani 9%
Ron Paul 8%
John McCain 6%
Tom Tancredo 2%
Unsure 8%
Other 1%
Source
http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/iowa.html
Huckabee’s leading in Iowa by a significant margin.
we can’t win florida with your kind of thinking greg.
and i checked out huckabee’s immigration platform and it seems pretty solid
Ducky thinks Huckabee would make a fine president.
That seals it for me - definitely NOT voting for Huckabee
PWConservative -
If you believe Huckabee now that it’s in his best interest to be strongly anti-illegal, well, then, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell ya’!
JUST SAY A BIG NO to anyone that panders!
Patriot,
Welcome back.
Tom Tancredo or Duncan Hunter are the best of the lot. Romney did nothing about illegal aliens while he was govenor of Massachusetts. Rudy is for amnesty. Huckabee is a Jimmy Carter RINO who happens to be Baptist. Fred Thompson has a pro amnesty, pro jihadi advisor, Spencer Abraham. I wish he’d get rid of him.
Tom Tancredo at least has integrity and is consistent. I would have been disappointed if he HAD attended the Mexican debate.
Oh, I forgot–Ron Paul is a Ralph Nader and McCain is simply not a factor.
Freedom,
re: your post at 7:31 am this morning….look what I just came across:
http://www.immigrationwatchdog.com/?p=5306
Go Rudy!
Rudy is going to go, alright. Straight to the political graveyard.
OMG, redawn, JUST what I needed to see…sigh.
Although I suppose a bit off-topic, I am very, very concerned about the concept of a “North American Union” and the continuing pandering to the certainly non-assimilated, probably largely illegal segment of the Latino community only helps pave the way toward the sacrifice of American sovereignty.
Obviously, consolidation of three countries (Mexico, USA and Canada) into a single union would eventually take more than talks and agreements at the Executive Branch level, but behind the scenes mini-steps, e.g., limiting the breadth of the 287(g) program, allowing Mexican truck transport into the heartland of this country, and construction of what has been called the NAFTA superhighway may eventually render agreements already made, seemingly practical and irreversibly ratifiable at the legislative level.
The significance of what we call “amnesty” today absolutely pales at the mere thought of a borderless unification of North American states. Progress toward that end must be stopped.
Just say NO to the NAU!
Freedom,
“OMG, redawn, JUST what I needed to see…sigh”
I am sorry, it is aweful
WELCOM BACK THE PATRIOT
The Patriot….where have you been for such a long time?
Welcome back. Now I feel better!
I agree freedom!! The NAU is definitely not the way to go. I do not like the fact the Gov’t is trying to do this without us knowing. I am ready to fire all of them in DC and bring in a whole new crew that doesn’t have someo sort of lobby in their pocket.
While I am on my “Just Say NO” kick…..
1. Just say NO to AMNESTY.
2. Just say NO to the NAU.
3. Just say NO to turning our country into a bi-lingual nation.
4. Just say NO to balkanization (due to bi-lingual initiatives).
5. Just say NO to giving any kind of benefits to illegal aliens and their families.
6. Just say NO to all illegal alien supporters.
7. Just say NO to ALL special interest groups (particularly the National Council of La Raza).
Patriot,
Forgot one:
Just say NO to giving birth certificates to babies born here to ILLEGAL parents.
OK is trying to pass a bill that will allow hospitals to petition the home country of the parents for a birth certificate.
The laws were enacted for a purpose back in the day. Many laws on the books in IL include:
In the town of Cisne, IL anyone driving a motor vehicle shall have someone walking in front of them at night to alert pedestrians of the danger. OK, we all know how long the automobile has been on the road.
We need to repeal the law that grants automatic citizenship to anchor babies. Again, another deterrent for ILLEGAL immigration.
Yes. I agree! Just say NO to automatic citizenship to anchor babies (that is a huge incentive that is being exploited by illegal aliens….and they (and their supporters) know it!
The Patriot (Got E-Verify?) ,
Apparently you say no to milk cartons too!
Where have you been?
You had people concerned about you.
Thanks for asking redawn. I am doing well. I just wanted to take a break.
I spoke with Senator John Warner, Congressman Tom Davis, and Congressman Frank Wolf on Capital Hill recently.
Senator John Warner said he was ready to vote for the President’s Amnesty Bill but because we all emailed and called his office expressing our opposition, he listened and voted against it. He said we made a big mistake, as our choices will only get worse from here.
Congressman Tom Davis said it’s not realistic to round em all up and ship em out and if we did, it would create an economic collapse in America.
Congressman Wolf said to those of us under 40, shouldn’t plan on social security being there for us at retirement because we will have more people collecting it than paying into it. However, he quickly turned the conversation to the threat of Wahhabism, and the need for energy independence in America. He said the Saudi’s and Chinese already own us stating China lends this Nation billions of dollars a day.
At the end of the day, I knew beyond a doubt that our elected officials believe that this country needs Immigrants in America to preserve the middle class, and that federal government needs the 50 billion dollars of unclaimed payroll tax it collects each year from Illegal’s using false social security numbers, and by welcoming these illegal’s there is hope that our social security and Medicare system could actually sustain itself for future generations. Our elected officials actually believe that it is they that know what is best for us.
I truly believe the North American Union is in their sights and have begun to encourage state elected officials to pass legislation NOW to exempt the Commonwealth from being included in the NAU.
I suggest you all join me in my mission by writing and calling your Delegate and Senator NOW and tell them you want legislation enacted in this session that will block federal government from including the Commonwealth from the NAU treaty. This is the only way to protect the Commonwealth, its citizens and it’s assets.
NAU will destroy the quality of life in America. Please help.
Ari Stotle,
I know this is going to sound stupid but, what will this do if we are exempt from the treaty? Then how does that work? We are own …?? I don’t understand. I am very concerned about this and yes we are owned by China which is scary in it self. Do you have a formatted letter that I can use?
Redawn,
The founders of our great nation never intended for federal government to be more powerful than the States. It’s time for States to reclaim themselves.
If anyone thinks NAU is an urban legend….look at this Resolution
http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.CON.RES.487:
How can I get the form letter to you?
Ari Stotle,
Dolph said you can send it to: dolphin_moon@excite.com
and she will make sure I get it. Thank you!