Friday, March 31, 2006

Looking Ahead Part 2

The second issue that's going to affect the 2006 mid-term elections is the issue of immigration. In fact, it already is. There have been pro-immigration rallies throughout Souther California in the recent weeks, and they've been heavily covered by the news media, new and old.

The problem with those rallies is that they're getting the kind of attention that they don't want. Many of the immigrants in the rallies were seen carrying Mexican flags- not American flags. And alot of them were espousing pro-Mexican rhetoric. When you get images of illegal immigrants taking down an American flag and hoisting up an Mexican flag, and then putting an American flag upside down underneath it, on American soil, you know they've just lost 95% of middle America (Michelle Malkin). Here's some more info: Michelle Malkin 2, Dallas News, and Captain's Quarters. In conversations with regular Americans, people are starting to get fed up with the immigrant problem in the US. I don't mean the immigrants who want to be here, legal or illegal. Most of the immigrants that are in the US are from Mexico- and a great deal of them don't support America, and are actually sent here by the Mexican government, to add the money they make to the Mexican economy. Why should the US support people who are mooching off our economy? By and large, in my conversations with average Americans, they don't like this. At all.

And this isn't an issue that the Democrats want to reach the surface. Years ago, they would have been able to say that those that opposed the immigration were "racists" and "unamerican". At this point, that rhetoric will sound shallow when faced with the type of shennanigans that were going on at the pro-immigration rallies, which were featured on mainstream news. A wide swath of America doesn't like what they're seeing.

It remains to be seen if the Republican party will get behind this issue- Bush already is, proposing work visa programs and amnesty programs for the illegal immigrants who want to be in the US, and tougher measures in keeping immigrants out. To be frank, why else would there have been a meeting between Bush, Vincente Fox, and Stephen Harper (the new Canadian PM) this past week? They watched the news, and all saw that the illegal immigration issue had jumped the shark.

The problem for the Republicans (as well as the Dems) in Congress is that they see the Latino community as a voting bloc. They're mostly right, and that bloc basically can have an impact on elections. However, those that are against illegal immigration represent a far greater bloc. As the issue is being presented to the public- this is the type of issue that the Dems don't want to be a factor in the mid-term elections. They know they can get snazzy headlines with this, but they won't be able to get the voters with stupid crap like what I posted. It's out in the open, and it will have a ripple effect.

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