Richard Viguerie Blasts McCain
By Greg L | 14 July 2008 | National Politics | 38 Comments
This press release from conservative stalwart Richard Viguerie gives another explanation why conservatives are so tremendously unexcited about the campaign of John McCain. Some of us are fed up with McCain’s Hispandering, others recall McCain’s abysmal record on Second Amendment issues. Just about every conservative issues voter has some reason to be backing away from this year’s presidential race, and many clearly are. Viguerie gets a little more strategic in his evaluation of this race, saying that the conservative movement would be hard-pressed to survive a McCain presidency, and I think he’s on target.
(Las Vegas, Nevada) Conservatives are so depressed over the state of the McCain campaign–particularly its failure to include and enthuse the Republican base–that they are preparing themselves for a monumental GOP defeat in November, Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, said in a speech to FreedomFest.
“You even have some conservatives who are considering voting for Barack Obama, because they fear McCain as president would destroy what’s left of the Republican brand and would finish off the conservative movement,” said Viguerie. “Their mood is that of the fatally ill patient who says ‘Let’s get this over with’.”
“John McCain has had the Republican nomination sewn up for five months and has done little to convince conservatives they should come off the sidelines and fight for him,” he said.
Viguerie said, “Personnel is policy and if Senator McCain won’t surround himself with conservatives during this campaign, when he desperately needs them, why should we think that he will have conservatives making critical decisions in his administration?”
“Senator McCain has never been a conservative, is not one now, and will not govern as one. From McCain-Feingold to cap-and-trade, he is a supporter of one Big Government scheme after another. History shows that, in the Oval Office, where almost all the political pressure comes from supporters of Big Government, he would only get worse.”
Viguerie has also called for the resignation of the Republican leadership in Congress.
“After this year’s expected blood bath in the November elections, the voters will bring about a massive housecleaning of GOP leaders in favor of principled conservatives,” he said.
Freedom Fest, at which Viguerie spoke, is a gathering of prominent advocates for free markets. Other speakers this year include Steve Forbes, George Gilder, Bob Barr, Dinesh D’Souza, Christopher Hitchens, and Congressman Ron Paul.
In the long run, perhaps one of the best outcomes would be for McCain to have his clock cleaned this election. There will never be a restoration of the conservative movement with John McCain in the White House.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
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McCain should pick Duncan Hunter as his VP….
McCain Issues Top Ten Funniest Ways to Kill Iranians
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/mccain-issues-top-ten-fun_b_111631.html
Nice try. It isn’t McCain that has ruined the Republican brand, it’s George W. Bush. McCain hasn’t even had the chance to lose the election yet. I think the conservative pundits are funny. They praised and pushed George Bush for 8 years. His administration has been a disaster. Now, they want you to believe that their problems are caused by McCain’s immigration policy? Too funny.
The problem with the Republican Party is that it stands for nothing. Absolutely, positively nothing. It has a worse brand than Enron and less credibility than a door to door vacuum salesman wearing a plaid sports coat.
The Republicans need to lose and lose badly this November. Then they need to go back to basics and get their heads on straight. And the first good move in that direction would be to ignore every “conservative pundit” in the world. Drop the wedge social issues and focus on ending the wars and economics.
Of course, the “conservative pundits” will blame McCain for the Republican meltdown this November. Then they will refuse to make any meaningful changes while looking for the perfect conservative candidate. They’ll be toast for the next 12 years.
How the heck did someone as perceptive and realistic as Groveton show up around here? Better check perimeter security.
I’ve never sensed that many commenters (or our host) are particularly “conservative” in any traditional, coherent political sense. Not sure why anyone here would care whether McCain is a boon or bane to conservatism.
As a corollary to Gresham’s Law (that bad money drives out good), one can posit an analogous axiom that ignorant politics have debased the value of political conservativism. Both the Republican Party and the label “conservative” have been overrun by empty slogan slingers. As Groveton observes implicitly, Mr. Viguerie’s lack of concern over the tremendous damage to conservative principles imposed by Republicans over the last eight years in favor of an attack on McCain probably reflects the fact that McCain doesn’t buy into the hollow jargon and isn’t programmable. Not sure that’s a bad thing in a president. Not sure that it’s a bad thing in a conservative.
Every time I think of McCain I want to puke!!!!
Viguerie is a great conservative but he is certainly not a Republican and has not been for a long time. I do like much of what he say but I also realize he is hostile to many if not most Republicans in office.
Short of the repugs finding any serious dirt on Osama or his wife in the next few months, this November is going to be the biggest rout in election history. I’d say McCain would be lucky to get 20% of the vote as things stand now. I’ll be writing in Ron Paul myself. I refuse to pull the lever between the devil or his head demon.
Again it comes down to if you enjoy the second Amendment, enjoy lower taxes, enjoy not having the UN and France guide our domestic and foreign policies, it is vital that Obama not get elected. Obama will appoint liberal judges to the Supreme Court, appoint liberal judges to Federal Courts.
There is no question a four year term under Dem leadership in all three branches of the Federal Government would be far more worse than four years under McCain.
I don’t see how Democrats in the House and Senate are different than Republicans. Neither parties stand for anything, and have lost their values. Democrats currently have a nine percent approval rating, which represents the lowest figure in the history of modern polling.
If there is a bloodletting this fall, it should be focused on both parties and not just Republicans. Statesmen and value-based politicians are not to be found in this current group. They should be sent home en masse.
Obama and McCain show that, once again, the major parties are forcing Americans to hold their noses and vote. Both men have major flaws that will not be corrected by simply chosing the right VP candidate. Obama will win, because youth and vitality are more attractive to Americans. McCain has shown a suprising ability to run a terrible campaign. He is quicker to attack his supporters than his opponent, and he has surrounded himself with a rogue’s gallery of moderates and closet liberals.
If people would email their county, state, and federal reps with as much regularity as they post on this blog, imagine the change we could make. The next time you get fired up to post something here, take that energy and use it to send a note to Mr. Colgan, Warner, Webb, Wolf, etc.
Groveton is correct except that it was Bush senior who started the decline of the Republican party.
I’m concentrating on local, state and congressional elections. There’s not a dimes worth of difference between Obama and McCain. I can’t vote for either.
If there weren’t the possiblity of 2, maybe 3, Supreme Court appointments during the next administration I’d agree with the “it-took-a-Carter-to-get-a-Regan” argument or the let the GOP get walloped to knock some sense into their heads plan . . . but the stakes are simply too high. The court needs to be cleansed of the “living” Constitutionalists and this will be the only opportunity for decades to come.
As an Republican I Hate McAmnesty with an Passion! He is not only wrong in most of his decisions I am convince the man is totally stupid and beyond help. We have an Racist corrupt politician Obama and a liberal corrupt moron to chose from in this election. I will be writing in Ron Paul.
Groveton-
I agree. The Bush governing style of “Because I say so” is based on stupidity and greed. We the people are no longer in charge of the political process and both parties are rubbing our noses in it. The economy is s*&t, were stuck in a war and gas is $5 a gallon. The politicians have us by the ‘nads. We are being systematically squeezed for every penny that we have by every entity in business and government. What are we going to do about it?
The election’s not over … note the polls just tightened up. McCain said nothing especially brilliant and Obama nothing especially stupid, but they tightened up. I remember 4 years ago, Bush by all reasonable consensus did poorly in the TV debates, but gained in the polls. The American people are relatively conservative. It seems to me McCain could win this, with the usual GOP formula - make the American people fear your candidate more than they fear you.
To the degree that pricipaled Repiblicans have the good sense to punish the GOP for their instransigence on illegal immigration - it might make a difference. Speak now, or hold your peace and suck it.
PLUS - come on, the guy shouldn’t be President. He’s a little bit nuts. His jokes about killing Iranians and bombing Iran, his supposed picking up a Nicaraguan soldier by the shirt collar, his bullying of the Press, hsi vociferousness about matters to do with the war in Iraq that he actually knows nothing about … the guy is way unfit.
“Both the Republican Party and the label “conservative” have been overrun by empty slogan slingers.”
No, I’d say they’ve been overrun by the “I’m a Republican, but…” types.
I think those social conservatives that believe that there is no difference between McCain and Obama are not considering their records:
Life: McCain has a strong pro-life record. Obama advocated for allowing abortionists to murder a child who survives an abortion attempt, is delivered and breathing.
2nd Ammendment: McCain’s only blemish on a pro-2nd Ammendment record is his “gun-show loophole” crusade a few years ago. Obama has a long history of anti-2nd ammendment votes, going back to his days as an Illinois state legislator, and continued this record as a US Senator.
I could list them side by side on every social issue and McCain’s record, while not perfect, is far superior to Obama. Obama was rated the most liberal Senator. Think about that. Obama is more liberal than Ted Kennedy. (http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/)
I would ask that you also consider how much damage an Obama/Reid/Pelosi would inflect upon our nation. This is a “perfect storm” of liberalism forming here folks. You are worried that McCain isn’t conservative enough? Look at the alternative. Bernie Sanders, the admitted SOCIALIST Senator from Vermont was rated MORE conservative than Obama. Think about the lasting damage on the SCOUS.
I heard over WTOP this weekend, Obama saying his views on “illegal” immigration, regarding Prince William County 287g resolution.
somewhat paraphrased, but as accurate as I can remember it.
“I understand the PWCs people’s frustration with the federal and state government’s failure to enforce immigration law.” It is cleary a result of the federal and state governments failure to act.
1. I believe we need to strengthen the borders first, secure the borders first and then address the issue of illegal immigration”.
3. We need to enforce the law and enforce the law on the businesses who hire them “sic illegals”.
2. I think we need to come up with a way to address the issue of those who have been here a long time, get them out of the shadows, not give them amnesty, but give them a fine, and send them to the back of the line.
His position is even tougher apparently on “illegals” than McCain’s desire to give them amnesty. What Obama did not say is whether “illegals” have to go home, while they wait at the back of the line for others “legally” in front of them to be admitted.
Excellent comments by Groveton and NoVA Scout. However, if you all think the answer to America’s problems are conservative justices, you’re flat out wrong. That’s a last gasp from a party unwilling to restrict the power of the federal courts under Article III, Section 2 of the US Constitution:
“In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”
It’s a last gasp because they’ve become political eunuchs. In other words, we can’t depend on a Republican Congress to stop the courts from allowing the “living” Constitution. This ploy to hold onto the Supreme Court is absurd. Eventually we’ll lose it until we regain our roots and convince the electorate.
BTW, do we really think McCain will appoint justices who will enforce the 1st Amendment vis-a-vis McCain-Feingold? Why would we expect him to appoint justices that conform to his mold rather than the Constitution? Because he says so? Look at his predecessor. President Bush not only removed abolishing the unconstitutional Dept. of Education from the platform, he increased its budget! The whole time he kept telling us he was a “strict” constructionist. What did that get us? More taxpayer dollars towards federal education. In May of 2007, President Bush urged Congress to sign onto the UN Law of the Sea treaty which would create, among other threats to sovereignty, an international police force on the high Seas.
As a party, we’re adrift with a wet finger in the air to see which direction the political wind is blowing. Why? Because we don’t even follow a document that we want justices to follow. And, follow in cases where lightening strikes on a golf course in broad daylight without a cloud in the sky.
Another bash for McCain:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/14/AR2008071400366.html
McCain says Obama should visit South America
By Steve Holland, Reuters
Monday, July 14, 2008; 6:01 AM
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has hectored Democratic rival Barack Obama to visit Iraq, now says Obama should go to South America as well.
McCain, an Arizona senator, is to make the case in a speech on Monday in San Diego to the National Council of La Raza, one of the most important advocacy groups in the United States for Hispanic Americans.
McCain, who needs support from Hispanic Americans in his battle against Obama in the November 4 presidential election, will tell the group about his support for a stalled free trade agreement between the United States and Colombia and a hemispheric trade pact.
“And while it is surely not my intention to become my opponent’s scheduler, I hope Sen. Obama soon visits some of the other countries of the Americas for the first time,” McCain is to say, according to excerpts released by his campaign. “Were he to do so, I think he, too, would see that stronger economic bonds with our neighbors and the closer friendships they encourage, are a great benefit in many ways to our country.” …………
Michael,
Obama is for amnesty too. McCain may be for it too, but he will not get it as long as the GOP keeps its current number in Congress. Remember it was the Dems who pushed to have felon illegals to also receive amnesty. That failed because of the GOP.
Mr. Anon,
If you do not think there is a difference between the Dems in congress right now the GOP, I suppose there is nothing to say.
But, under the GOP leadership, gun rights will not be taken away. conservative talk radio will not be taken away. Taxes will not go up. Our military will be respected and funded. We will not have liberal federal Judges. We will not have a person who associates with terrorists and racists.
Why is McCain a Republican? What part of the Republican platform does he endorse?
There is a great deal that separates the two major parties these days — unfortunately, we have one candidate that doesn’t know what his party stands for (McCain) and another who knows all too well what his party stands for (Obama) and that party’s policies are dangerous.
The problem for Republicans is that they are acting like Whigs in the 19th Century. The Whigs neglected Abolition of Slavery and were overtaken by the new Republican Party in the 1850s. The issue for Republicans today is the Sanctity of Life. Yes, limited government, enforcing immigration policies, a strong defense, etc., are all good. But when the Republicans neglect or minimize the Sanctity of Life, they lose focus and are in danger of being a party that is simply known as the “Anti-Democratic” party whatever that means. At least McCain’s position on this issue is more positive than Obama’s.
Hello my friends, this is John McCain. Let me set the record straight on a few things.
First, we cannot deport 10 million people. We are going to have to come to some agreement with these people. If we do not, I fear they will all become registered Democrats. Now, that may not be such a bad thing. I myself have flirted with becoming a registered Democrat. No, I joke, but seriously, we don’t want that.
We need to do something to placate these people. I would let them pay a fine of no less than fifty dollars. My friends, that is not peanuts. in fact I may be willing to negotiate that down. If they threaten to vote Democrat. Frankly I’m willing to cave.
However, we will increase the penalty to one hundred dollars if the person in question has been found guilty of a felony, or is a known terrorist.
My friends we have no time to deal with this issue. Our troops are in Iraq and may well be there for another hundred years. We need to cave, and cave quickly - or we may lose ground in the polls and it may endanger the core elements of our party platform - whatever those may be. I’ll figure them out before the convention and let you all know.
Thank you for your support in 2008.
And Viva La Raza!
John McCain - If it weren’t so true and so sad - I would have laughed even harder at your post!
Certainly, there are millions of Hispanic immigrants and their children who fit this paradigm; their admirable work ethic has revitalized neighborhoods and brought valuable cultural traditions to this country. But as a Los Angeles native, I was not so sure that the archetype of the “redemptive Hispanic” captured the entire story of Hispanic immigration. So I visited schools and jails throughout Los Angeles and Orange County, talking to students, teachers, counselors, inmates, and police officers, and discovered a picture that is far more complex than the open borders advocates acknowledge or even allow in polite discourse. And looking at social statistics, I could only conclude that the “redemptive Hispanic” is more myth than reality. Especially among second and third generation Hispanics, gang involvement, illegitimacy, and school failure are serious problems that are creating a second underclass.
Speak with students in any heavily Latino school and youIn observing the standard discourse about immigration I noticed a certain archetype popping up again and again, especially in the discourse of open border conservatives: what I call the “redemptive Hispanic.” It was said that Hispanic immigrants would save America from itself by reinvigorating those family and will come across comments like this, told me by Jackie, a vivacious illegal alien from Guatemala, who was getting her GED at Belmont High School in Los Angeles’s overwhelmingly Hispanic, gang-ridden Rampart district: “Most of the people I used to hang out with when I first came to the school have dropped out. Others got kicked out or got into drugs. Five graduated, and four home girls got pregnant.”
Jackie’s observations have been confirmed by every teen I spoke to while researching teen pregnancy and out of wedlock child-bearing in Southern California. “This year was the worst for pregnancies,” said Liliana, an American-born senior at Manual Arts High School near downtown Los Angeles. “A lot of girls get abortions; some drop out.” Are girls ashamed when they get pregnant? I asked . “Not at all,” Liliana responds. Among Hispanic teens the stigma of single parenthood has vanished.
Statistics bear out these first-person accounts. Mexican girls—who come from by far the largest and fastest-growing immigrant population–now have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country. The Mexican teen birthrate is 93 births per every 1,000 girls, compared with 27 births for every 1,000 white girls, 17 births for every 1,000 Asian girls, and 65 births for every 1,000 black girls.
Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country. Moreover, 48 percent of all Hispanic births occur outside of marriage, compared with 24 percent of white births and 15 percent of Asian births. Only the percentage of black out-of-wedlock births — 68% — exceeds the Hispanic rate. But the black population is not going to triple over the next few decades.
There is no greater predictor of future dysfunction than growing up in a single-parent home. Children raised in single-parent homes are at far higher risk of school failure, juvenile delinquency, emotional problems, teen pregnancy, and poverty than children raised by married parents.
Gang life is thriving in Southern California schools, and is spreading across the country with the migration of Hispanic immigrants. Crime involvement worsens dramatically from the first to the second generation of Latinos. The incarceration rate of Mexican-Americans is 3.45 times higher than that of whites. A whopping 28% of Mexican-American males in San Diego between the ages of 18 and 24 reported having been arrested since 1995, and 20%reported having been incarcerated — a rate twice that of other immigrant groups.
This summer in Southern California, in two separate incidents just weeks apart, Latino gang members fatally gunned down two grandmothers who had confronted them while they were spraying gang graffiti. The gunmen were not recently arrived illegals, but part of a burgeoning Hispanic-American gang culture.
I should also mention that Hispanics have the highest school drop-out rate in the country — a recipe for economic decline.
These are problems that are currently taboo to speak about, but they must be looked at unflinchingly as we decide what our immigration policy should be. While many immigrants continue to thrive and to enrich our country, too many from the second and third generation of Hispanics are developing behaviors that will fray the social fabric and cost taxpayers millions in welfare and criminal justice outlays.
FP: Steven Malanga, kindly give us your thoughts on Heather Macdonald’s findings. Then tell us your angle on the cost Hispanic immigrants have produced to the American economy.
Malanga: Many of the social problems that Heather outlines are prescriptions for economic failure, too. Studies of the poor, for instance, indicate that a big chunk of poverty in America is not a result of a lack of economic opportunity or a failure of our economic system, but of poor choices that individuals make in life that bring them great disadvantages. For instance, two-thirds of all families in poverty in America are headed by single-parents, and in fewer than 20 percent of those families is the parent working full time.
That’s why we look at statistics on teen pregnancies and out-of-wedlock births among immigrants and their American-born children with such alarm. They are one reason why the old formula of immigrants coming to America and finding economic success for themselves and their children apparently doesn’t apply as widely to this generation of immigrants.
In the book I go into some detail about what the latest research shows us about the economic performance of immigrants in this, the so-called Second Great Migration, especially in contrast to previous generations of immigrants who came during what is often called the First Great Migration—from 1880 to about 1925. There are crucial differences which it is important to understand.
For one thing, studies have shown that although immigrants during the First Great Migration were described as the ‘tired’ and ‘poor’ of Europe, they actually came with skills and trades, and as a result, they fit into the American economy of the time fairly well. A study by the National Academies found that immigrants of that migration were actually on average slightly more skilled than the average American worker of the time, which is one reason why they attained economic parity with Americans quickly, and also why their children succeeded so well, on average. Another reason so many immigrants from the First Great Migration succeeded is because America put immigration restrictions in place starting in the 1920s, which greatly reduced migration and also minimized the competition that those already here would face from additional newcomers.
By contrast, today’s immigrants are largely out of step with our economy and confined to low-wage work where, because of their lack of education, they get stuck. A study by economists at Harvard, for instance, found that 63 percent of Mexican male immigrants do not have a high school education. As a result, those immigrants not only experience a larger wage gap with the American workforce when they first arrive than immigrants of 100 years ago experienced, but the wage gap persists. A study of Mexican immigrants who arrived in the 1970s found that 20 years later they hadn’t made much economic progress. Traditional economic mobility wasn’t working for them. Even more startling is that young Mexican male immigrants arriving more recently have an even larger wage gap relative to American workers.
This research has implications not only for the workers themselves, but for their children. Although we cherish the idea of immigrants’ kids working hard to succeed in America, economists will tell you that on average an entire generation of offspring can only better their parents by so much in terms of educational achievement and economic gains. This is why one study by Harvard economist George Borjas predicted that by 2030 the children of today’s Mexican born immigrants will still have a significant wage gap with the average American worker.
The size of the wage gap and the problems that the children of immigrants in school are having also probably explains why today’s immigrant families use social services to a far greater degree than the average native-born American family. I cite a number of groundbreaking studies done by economists for the National Academies on usage and costs of social services in two states—California and New Jersey. The California study estimated that every native-born family in the state was paying nearly $1,300 in additional taxes because the cost of providing government services to immigrant families so heavily outweighed the taxes they pay. Economists have replicated these studies in other places now, including Florida, with similar results.
Because so many immigrants are low wage workers, their contribution to the economy is not as significant as the contributions that immigrants once made. The National Academies study estimated in 1998 that immigrants produced a net economic benefit of some $10 billion to our economy, which in an economy of our size is a very small contribution, especially when contrasted with the costs. Studies which estimate a bigger benefit typically include the wages being paid to immigrants themselves as part of the contribution to our economy, or they often make projections into the future based on questionable assumptions to ‘find’ a time in the distant future when today’s immigrants will finally produce a net benefit to the economy.
Of course, some advocates for today’s very liberal levels of immigration say that immigrants are doing jobs that Americans won’t do. Yet we have had so much immigration since the early 1970s that immigrants are now competing with other immigrants for jobs here in the U.S., driving down each other’s wages and making economic progress more difficult. A number of studies have shown that today’s immigrants have the biggest impact in the job market on other immigrants and on native-born Hispanic workers, with whom they often compete.
Today, moreover, some U.S. industries have failed to invest in automation and productivity because of the opportunity for low-wage workers that immigration presents to them. Two noted agricultural economists, for instance, have estimated that the long-term price increases in produce would be very modest if American farmers had to do without immigrant workers because the cost of labor is such a small part of the retail price of produce, and because there are farming techniques and automated systems being used around the rest of the world that our farmers could adopt to replace some of the work now being done by immigrant farm hands.
You rarely hear many of these issues discussed in our debates today on immigration. If I had to characterize how the debate is carried out in the media, I would say that it’s largely based on old facts and myths which have little to do with today’s immigration and its social and economic impact on 21st Century America.
FP: Victor Hanson?
Hanson: Empirically-after living over a half-century in the San Joaquin Valley, the ground zero of illegal immigration from Mexico-I could confirm many of the statistics Steven and Heath present. But I would add two observations. One, what should one expect when millions arrive with the three strikes of no English, no legality, and not much education-at a time when America itself has lost confidence in its own traditions, and so asks very little of any immigrants, and has replaced the successful melting pot with the bankrupt and illiberal notion of a salad bowl?
And second, I think one tragedy of illegal immigration is that tens of thousands of Mexican immigrants do assimilate, integrate, and intermarry citizens-and their children succeed in the manner of traditional second-generation immigrants. BUT, that being said, the pool of illegal arrivals from Mexico and Latin America is so large that in recent years for every imigrant that perhaps makes the successful transition, another two arrive, the result being that we have a permanent pool of illegal immigrants that exhibit the sort of dependencies on the entitlement industry that we have come to expect in the American Southwest, and do not find upward mobility amid what are de facto growing apartheid communities
Close the borders-through a multifaceted effort to beef up security, fortify the easiest transits, fine employers who hire illegals, provide verifiable IDs- and return to the assimilationist model of the past, and by attrition many of our present problems will begin disappearing while we spend years squabbling over amnesties and deportations.
Macdonald: If I may make a macro-point: The fact that we are engaged in this debate at all represents a radical shake-up of the immigration status quo (‘we’ being not just my coauthors but the pundit class and reluctant politicians as well). For the first time in decades, the public has forced the political and media elites to respond to its dismay at illegal immigration. Though liberal and—more surprisingly—conservative opinion-makers are untroubled by illegal immigration’s massive assault on the rule of law, the public still cares deeply whether our laws are respected or not. Moreover, people who live with the influx of poorly-educated, low-skilled illegal immigrants see the strains that this demographic wave puts on their communities.
The prominence that illegal immigration has had in the public debate over the last two years represents a triumph of democracy, in my view. After decades of being silenced, the popular will is finally being heard, amplified by the rise of the new media. And this change in the political climate is more than cosmetic. Though the Bush Administration had to be dragged kicking and screaming into its current enforcement policies, those policies are many magnitudes more aggressive than anything that has been seen for years—if still a fraction of what they need to be. Even more responsive have been local and state legislatures, which are forging ahead with efforts to stop rewarding and start penalizing immigration law-breakers, both American and foreign.
Are the political ferment and the ensuing government actions perfect? Of course not. As Steve has pointed out, the debate has largely failed to take up the question of what a more nationally beneficial immigration policy should look like. And it is still possible that after the Presidential election, politicians will go back to ignoring the public will. Still, I think that the public deserves credit for persisting in its demand that our national borders and immigration laws be respected.
Malanga: Speaking of the public, as Heather has, I think that immigration is a good issue on which voters can judge candidates, especially presidential candidates, because there is no such thing as a typical liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican view of immigration. Most candidates who take a clear-cut position on immigration policy will offend some voters who are otherwise their supporters, and the degree to which candidates are willing to take a principled stand and risk alienating some supporters should tell us something about their political courage—or lack of it.
We saw this with Hillary Clinton and the issue of drivers’ licenses for illegals. What caused her so much grief was her refusal to give a clear outline of her policy for so long. Although polls showed that most Americans objected to the idea, those Democrats who came out in favor of the plan by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, including Barack Obama, got in far less trouble that did Clinton, with her equivocating.
It’s precisely because the immigration issue has created atypical political coalitions that some candidates, especially some of the frontrunning presidential candidates, have tried simply to dodge the issue. It’s quite amazing, if you look over the position papers of most presidential candidates, the degree to which they either ignore immigration as an issue or treat it in the most cursory and superficial manner, as if it’s merely a minor matter to most Americans. Most of the candidates—from Hillary Clinton on one hand to Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani on the other—would probably just love to see the issue disappear, though it’s the voters who are refusing to let that happen.
What is especially missing from the debate is any discussion of what our legal immigration policy should look like. We currently allow into the country some 1 million legal immigrants every year, so their impact is profound even without discussing illegal immigration. Moreover, most legal immigrants are coming on visas determined by family relations. Our current legal policy, in other words, has little to do with favoring immigrants who might actually make a contribution to our economy and our society. By contrast, in Australia, which has retooled its immigration policy in recent years, 70 percent of visas are skills-based. Australian officials have proclaimed that because of their immigration policy, they are winning the worldwide battle for talent.
We need to think about narrowing the range of people who can come here based on family relations, because there is little sense to our current policy. Today, we allow not only the spouses and minor children of those who are here legally to join them (which makes sense), but we also allow the adult parents and adult siblings of those who are already here to get in line for legal visas. Once those adults get here, of course, then a whole new set of family relations (the adult siblings of their spouses for instance) become eligible to immigrate, and many apply to get in line for visas. What this has done over the years is make the list of those seeking legal admission lengthy, and periodically the immigration advocates call for increasing our legal immigration limits to clear up the backlog of those waiting to get in. It’s by this haphazard process that we’ve established our current legal immigration quotas, with about two-thirds of the 1 million coming on family relations visas. No other country lets in remotely as many people legally based on family relations.
In our book I outline a set of potential options for reforming our legal immigration system based on a policy that favors those with skills and restricts visas based on family relations to the spouses and minor children of legal immigrants. I discuss the ways that other countries which are immigrant magnets—Australia and Ireland, for instance—have reshaped their policies in recent years with the skilled immigrant in mind. There are a number of interesting things we could do, and it would be wonderful to have a debate about that, but right now, the candidates are ignoring the issue of our legal immigration system, and I guess they won’t address it until the public requires them to.
Hanson: The issue should favor the Republican candidates who reflect the public’s desire to close the borders first, and then worry over the other controversies later. Both Sens. Obama and Clinton are hostage to the identity politics wing of their party, and are pretty much for the status quo. Expect the volatile issue to break out in the campaigning for the general election in a way few expect.
As long as Republicans can’t be pegged as the pro-mass-deportation party, they do much better. After weeding out very recent arrivals, felons, and those not working on public assistance, there are still several million illegal aliens who may not volunteer to return home or won’t marry US citizens. These longtime working residents need to find some sort of mechanism to apply for a verifiable ID, and then citizenship while legal residents-but after paying a fine, learning English, and going through the citizenship process. Putting 7-8 million on buses en masse to Oaxaca won’t work.
A few other observations: there is a great latent anger in the US that erupts once politicians–cf. the backlash over the 2006 May-Day demonstrations, or the recent immigration comprehensive reform package–treat the public as racists or Neanderthals for wanting their government to enforce the very laws they are entrusted with enforcing.
Second, there are entire issues touching on illegal immigration that are completely taboo subjects: the drop-out rates of second-generation children of illegal aliens; the racist attacks of alien gangs against blacks in Los Angeles; the costs of unfunded entitlements for illegal aliens such as health care and special remediation in schools and of incarceration of alien felons (over a half-billion dollars alone per annum in California.
Third, there is a complete pass given the fossilized and racialist Latino groups that oppose English as our official national language, buy into the La Voce de Aztlan nonsense, and still employ tribalist nomenclature like “La Raza” (”The Race”) that would be tolerated for no other group.
Fourth, we pay far too little attention to the near bellicose stance of the Mexican government that systematically thwarts US law in desperation to keep billions in remittances, to keep open its export of those it can’t or won’t feed and house, and to foster a sympathetic expatriate community that loses its animus to Mexico the longer it is away from the motherland.
Fifth, there is silence about the stunning manner that illegal immigration harms American low-wage earners, in the most illiberal fashion.
Illegal immigration is one of the great moral issues of our times-it contaminates everyone involved, not surprising when federal law is systematically ignored as the Right seeks profit and the Left a collective political constituency. Illegal immigration is illiberal immigration.
FP: Heather MacDonald, Steven Malanga and Victor Hanson, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium.
My friends, Amnesty like a rose will smell sweet by any other name. Please see my Spanish web site for more details. Did you know that the United States used to belong to the Latino people?
Oops, so sorry. That was intended for a different web site and audience. Please disregard.
We can, we must, we will secure the borders and regain the faith of the American people. On this there can be no compromise. Amnesty is not an option - I get the message. Thank you for your support.
Yes, a different message delivered at the secret meeting for La Raza.
McCain will jeopardize our national security with his position on immigration.
And, if elected, he’ll also do irreparable harm to the Republican Party. In fact, I’m not sure the Party will be around if McCain serves even one term in the White House.
For me, Obama is even scarier than McCain. It remains to be seen if I can actually cast my ballot for McCain, however. A lot depends on his choice for VP.
It’s so ironic the Republican Party thinks they are Holy-ier than thou have no morals, They don’t care about their own people (Katrina) but they will rebuild a nation half way around the World for people who hate us while average Americans are losing their American dreams.
A Nation of Whiners
“We should be able to deliver bottle hot water to dehydrated babies”.—–> John McCain- Tuesday, June 03 2008
Republicans eating their own; let the games begin!
So the lesson Republicans learn from three dramatic defeats in their base territory is: We are not big enough jerks! People will vote for us if we do exactly what we have been doing since losing big in 2006, only more so. We need to rally around our unpopular president and his hated policies ever tighter. Boy, when you react to voter discipline by increasing your bad behavior, you are really asking for electoral extermination.
WOW! George Bush sure has the magic touch. He has destroyed the economy, shredded the constitution, and destroyed Iraq. And that’s not all. He has destroyed the republican party.
Evangelicals are so ****ed off that the Bush Adm. hijacked the religion and used them for EVIL. the NeoCons are NOT Christian NOT Pro-Life NOT Family Values NOT Conservative they have even managed to pervert and corrupt CAPITALISM
“It’s so ironic the Republican Party thinks they are Holy-ier than thou have no morals, They don’t care about their own people (Katrina) but they will rebuild a nation half way around the World for people who hate us while average Americans are losing their American dreams.”
So true…so true!
“Remarks by John McCain at the 2008 National Council of La Raza Conventiion (Full Text)”:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2045425/posts
The line that jumped out at me: ‘ … Putting faces on the tragic human cost of illegal immigration.’ By all means.
Of course, some faces are more important, more equal than others. More worthy of mention than other.
How about these faces, Senor McCain?:
http://www.ojjpac.org/memorial.asp
http://www.voiac.org/
http://www.immigrationshumancost.org/
http://americanpatrol.com/REFERENCE/FamilyValuesLink.html
http://www.americanpatrol.com/MISCNEWS/2006-UP/ELECTIONS/2008/MCCAIN/PhoneRallyJM_080714.html
To say that Obama is qualified to be president is like saying that because I have had a few beers in my time, I am qualified to be the head of Anheuser-Busch.
I want to see the people here get behind Bob Barr, Ron Paul, and especially get behind Christopher Higgins.
Steve Forbes endorsed McCain back in February. I guess he’s not a “conservative”.
After all, the “conservatives” are running away scared, burying their heads in the sand and praying that someone will put a bullet in their shiny rear ends and put them out of their self-imposed misery.
And “conservatives” voting for Barack Obama? I understand individuals deciding not to vote, or to vote for a candidate they support. But any “conservative” who casts a vote for Obama is no conservative.
Either they are closet liberals, voting for a fellow liberal, or they are conniving idiots, trying to damage the country in the hopes that they can make political gains on the wreckage.
Vote against every congress-person running. After three elections we will have cleaned them all out. There isn’t one worth a bucket of warm piss. As far as president, write your own name in if you have all the answers. There is an outside chance that McManiac will nominate quasi conservative judges. Hussein will nominate the likes of posterior orfices such as Hillary, Nancy, or Reid. Make the choice!
“take that energy and use it to send a note to Mr. Colgan, Warner, Webb, Wolf, etc.” … Wolf, et. al. don’t read sh*t! They return “form letters”. These people are only concerned about their own skin, their paycheck (courtesy of us) and their pension (again, courtesy of us… any of you eligible for a pension?) This board (and others like it) are the only TRUE democracy. I see more intelligence on these boards than I see in either congress or senate… and Nova, don’t get me going about McCain… yes, he is a Republican (by his own admission), but that does not make him “conservative”. He is a lib (along with his Brokeback Mt. buddy Kennedy). Wolf should be forced to read these web sites. It may be an education for him.