The Immigration Issue

Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, has an opinion piece over at The Politico that should be a must read for Republican party strategists. Brown confirms what I have been saying for some time now: illegal immigration is the key issue for the 2008 election cycle.

Immigration is becoming for the 2008 election what affirmative action/racial preferences was 15 years ago — the kind of emotional wedge issue that offers Republicans a way to split rank-and-file Democrats from their leaders. 

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the battle over programs aimed at helping minorities was a major factor in many political campaigns. The election results often appeared to contradict what seemed to be the public’s opinion on the issue. 

Looking back, much of the confusion stemmed from the wording of many poll questions on the subject. They tended to show strong support for “affirmative action,” which was how the programs were described by supporters and, often, the media. 

But opponents used the term “racial preferences” to describe programs that often gave minorities an edge in competition for college admission and jobs. When pollsters used that language to describe the programs, they found strong public opposition. 

Affirmative action is an issue similar to immigration today, one on which Democratic activists, but not necessarily the mass of party members, differ from the general electorate. Activists often infer their opponents are racially motivated — creating strong and often hostile feelings on both sides. 

How immigration plays out politically in 2008 will likely be determined by which side can convince the mass of Americans that their terminology best describes reality. 

We have seen the Licenses for Lawbreakers® scheme put forth by Eliot Spitzer hit the wall at approximately Mach 4. The result is the shattering of Spitzer's hopes for higher office. (And the impact left a pretty darned impressive crater.) We have seen the presumed "inevitable" candidate for the Democrats have a mini-meltdown over the same issue. The blood is in the water there and the sharks are moving in.

If framing is, as Brown suggests, the key, then a simple, powerful slogan makes it work.

High fence, wide gate and a hearty welcome for those who play by the rules. It does not matter where you came from, if you play by the rules and want to be an American, you are welcome here. That simple, that powerful, that American. Make sure that people who are here legally have a path to upward mobility by ensuring that a flood of illegal immigrants are not cutting the props out from under the ones who play by the rules. They will vote for the party that ensures they have a way up. They will detest the party that is trying to keep them down.

Whichever Way The Wind Blows……

(Apropos this post.)

The Weak Spot

The legend of Achilles is that his mother dipped him as an infant into the River Styx, an act that made him invulnerable. Except that the mother had to hold onto him somewhere, and so his heel was not protected. Hence the term Achilles Heel for a weak spot. Howard Fineman at Newsweek thinks Hillary Clinton has one. It could well be her political undoing.

Heading into yet another TV debate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton faces a potent enemy—not onstage, but in her own mind. She has a lifelong obsession with seeking out, and trying to control, unruly events and people. She often fails, and harms herself trying. If she doesn't ease up, she risks losing the race. Brainy women don't frighten voters; control freaks do.

Hillary hates surprises yet chooses to live in the most chaotic situations imaginable—from her eyes-wide-shut marriage to an undomesticated Arkansan, to a race for president in today's impossible-to-tame Wild West of bile-filled blogs and You Tube videos.

I've seen this disaster flick before. In her husband's 1992 campaign, she turned a family real-estate deal into a horror show by refusing to show documents about the transaction to The New York Times. She played the reporter along; then she stiffed him. The maneuver was too clever by half. "Whitewater" dogged the Clintons for years.

The latest example of the Control Freak Syndrome arose in Newton, Iowa, where her campaign planted in the audience at least one (and maybe several) questions to be asked of her. What on earth did she have to fear? By now she has answered thousands of questions and is smarter and better-briefed than any candidate in the field.

Why plant an innocuous question about global warming? The answer: because she could.

That may well be the most insightful, concise analysis of the situation to date. "Brainy women don't frighten voters; control freaks do." That is precisely how Clinton is coming across and that is precisely what is setting people's teeth on edge. The one thing no politician can tolerate is having their weak spot exposed publicly. It does not take much to ruin a candidate's chances, especially these days with all the mass media and new media. To have your weak spot exposed gives your opposition a target. They will take it. It might be an interesting debate tomorrow.

The one thing a politician never wants revealed

Ooh, Ooh, The Damage Done

That line from a Neil Young song, The Needle and the Damage Done, even though it is about a completely different subject, is strangely apt in this situation. The Washington Post's campaign blog, The Trail, notes that Eliot Spitzer finally dropped his Licenses for Lawbreakers® scheme, but to late. The damage, you see, has already been done.

After all the hoopla, N.Y. Gov. Eliot Spitzer is dropping his plan to provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. But the damage to the Democratic presidential candidates - and, overwhelmingly, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - is done.

Clinton waffled on the question of whether she supported the Spitzer proposal during an Oct. 30 debate that has haunted her in the weeks since. In her answer that night, Clinton both defended and objected to the idea of giving permits to undocumented residents.

And in an attempt to "clarify" her position the next day, Clinton sympathized with governors in Spitzer's position, and her advisers said it amounted to her backing his plan.

But now that Spitzer has abandoned his unpopular effort - one he said would bring illegal immigrants "out of the shadows" and help improve road safety - Clinton has a new, firm position: she is against driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

"I support Governor Spitzer's decision today to withdraw his proposal. His difficult job is made that much harder by the failure of the Congress and the White House to pass comprehensive immigration reform," Clinton said in a statement.

"As President, I will not support drivers' licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration including border security and fixing our broken system."

Clinton's original statements had left her plenty of wiggle room. But her campaign officials had insisted - that day, anyway — that she supported Spitzer, however tepidly. Now it seems that was not really the case.

So she was against it before she was for it while still being against it in a positive sort of way. Or something. Meanwhile, Eliot Spitzer, in his drive to try to reach the center of the earth, has managed to top (bottom?) even today's tic tacs tax news! Yes, he is releasing an onslaught of extremely hard core criminals onto the streets of New York. My gosh, He's about to make Michael Dukakis look presidential!

New York parole officials are speeding up the release of hard-core criminals who spent decades behind bars - including violent murderers and cop killers.

Parole boards under Gov. Spitzer are springing jailbirds at a far higher rate than they did during Gov. George Pataki's administration, state Division of Parole figures show.

One of the lucky prisoners is convicted killer Maurice Murrell, 40, of Brooklyn.

Just two years ago, board commissioners rejected Murrell's bid, saying his criminal past shows a "propensity for extreme violence and a disrespect for human life."

But Thursday, after 23 years in prison, Murrell was released.

Another recently freed killer is Richard Winkler, who did a 26-year stretch for blowing away his father with a shotgun in North Tarrytown, Westchester County. He was released in September, and has been living quietly in Manhattan.

Gerald Balone was freed in August after serving 30-plus years for killing three people in Buffalo with a hammer and a handgun.

And Harry Morrison, who served 27 years for giving his ailing wife a drug overdose and smothering her with a pillow in upstate Broome County, was released in July.

Next up: Voting rights for parolees! They may be the only core constituency left to him!

Lightning Strikes

Shifting sands on a beach in Wales revealed a surprise for beachcombers. A nearly intact P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft from the Second World War, buried by the sands after the pilot crash landed it on Sept. 27, 1942.

Beach strollers, sunbathers and swimmers often frolicked within a few yards of the aircraft, unaware of its existence until last summer, when unusual weather caused the sand to shift and erode.

The revelation of the Lockheed "Lightning" fighter, with its distinctive twin-boom design, has stirred interest in British aviation circles and among officials of the country's aircraft museums, ready to reclaim another artifact from history's greatest armed conflict.

Based on its serial number and other records, "the fighter is arguably the oldest P-38 in existence, and the oldest surviving 8th Air Force combat aircraft of any type," said Ric Gillespie, who heads a U.S.-based nonprofit group dedicated to preserving historic aircraft. "In that respect it's a major find, of exceptional interest to British and American aviation historians."

Gillespie finds romance as well as historic significance in the discovery of the aircraft, long forgotten by the U.S. government.

"It's sort of like `Brigadoon,' the mythical Scottish village that appears and disappears," he said. "Although the Welsh aren't too happy about that analogy — they have some famous legends of their own."

Gillespie's organization, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, learned of the plane's existence in September from a British air history enthusiast and sent a team to survey the site last month. The group plans to collaborate with British museum experts in recovering the fragile but nearly intact aircraft next spring.

The Imperial War Museum Duxford and the Royal Air Force Museum are among the institutions expressing interest.

The website for TIGHAR is here. They have a number of fascinating projects underway. A comprehensive site about the P-38 can be found here. Major Richard Bong, the highest scoring American ace in the war (40 victories) flew a Lightning. Major Bong was awarded both the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross.

A Bridge (Game) Too Far

There is a report today about those unnecessary controversies that are popping up frequently these days. A member of a woman’s bridge team, after winning a competition in China, held up a sign that read, “We did not vote for Bush.” The women on the team are paid professionals and some of them make their entire livelihood from playing tournaments. Now the organization that the team plays for is looking to sanction the women, rather forcefully, over their behavior.

In the genteel world of bridge, disputes are usually handled quietly and rarely involve issues of national policy. But in a fight reminiscent of the brouhaha over an anti-Bush statement by Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks in 2003, a team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest.

At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vote for Bush.”

By e-mail, angry bridge players have accused the women of “treason” and “sedition.”

“This isn’t a free-speech issue,” said Jan Martel, president of the United States Bridge Federation, the nonprofit group that selects teams for international tournaments. “There isn’t any question that private organizations can control the speech of people who represent them.”

Not so, said Danny Kleinman, a professional bridge player, teacher and columnist. “If the U.S.B.F. wants to impose conditions of membership that involve curtailment of free speech, then it cannot claim to represent our country in international competition,” he said by e-mail.

Ms. Martel said the action by the team, which had won the Venice Cup, the women’s title, at the Shanghai event, could cost the federation corporate sponsors.

The players have been stunned by the reaction to what they saw as a spontaneous gesture, “a moment of levity,” said Gail Greenberg, the team’s nonplaying captain and winner of 11 world championships.

You can read the whole, tiresome article for yourself by following the link. The Times is correct about one thing here: the situation is reminiscent of the Dixie Chick brouhaha. It is a pointless gesture made in a foreign venue by paid employees. In that respect, it is an unforced error on the part of the bridge team.

The fact is, whether you particularly like it or not, that the right to free speech has never guaranteed a right to freedom from consequences. If you do not think that is true, try telling the President of the company you work for some of that person’s personal shortcomings. Alternatively, walk up to a police officer and tell him about a crime you just committed. Silly examples but you get the point. Additionally, there is no First Amendment issue because the government is not involved. (Congress shall make no law…)

It seems that everything these days is politicized. It is becoming tedious in the extreme. I see both sides on this one but the team used, frankly, bad judgment in turning a bridge competition into a political venue. They made another bad choice when they did not consider the location that they were in - China is not exactly a hotbed of real democracy. The United States Bridge Federation may be making the entire matter worse by turning the team into martyrs. (Check the howling outrage from the left on Memeorandum.)

Another day, another pointless controversy.

Tic Tax

Apropos this post.

Boom!

The New Frontier Hotel In Las Vegas, 11/13/2007:

Great News On The C-47

I posted about an effort to recover an abandoned C-47 cargo airplane from Bosnia over the weekend. A team of volunteers headed by Béatrice Guillaume, who runs a D-Day museum in Merville, Normandy, was attempting to get the plane out. Government approval, however, was difficult to get. Béatrice Guillaume left a comment on that post with the great news that the government of Bosnia has signed off on the necessary paperwork and the team of volunteers is swinging into action to get the historic aircraft out of Bosnia and back to France.

The Batterie de Merville museum website is located here.

Test Of Wills In France

Labor unions in France have gone on strike in a show of force against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to reform pension rules for a small number of public service employees. The strikes so far are against the transportation sectors with the gas and electric utilities following close behind. Strikes have worked in the past when the government tried to reform various rules. This time, however, the public appears to be supporting Sarkozy.

Some of the country’s biggest train stations were eerily calm during rush hour after employees of the state-owned railway operator SNCF began an open-ended strike on Tuesday night. Paris transit workers joined the walkout this morning, shutting down key commuter lines around the capital and paralyzing parts of the Métro and bus network.

Bracing brisk November temperatures, scores of bundled up Parisians walked, biked or roller-bladed to work. Traffic in the center and on the motorway ringing the city limits, heavy at the best of times, slowed to a crawl. But in a sign that support for the strike may not be as overwhelming as the unions had hoped, some subway lines experienced fewer disruptions than expected…..

……Opinion polls suggest Mr. Sarkozy has the public on his side, and some Parisians displayed their support in original ways.

Outside the Saint Lazare station in central Paris, several bikes had small signs with anti-strike slogans clipped to their baskets, including this one: “Stop the strike. Today I pedal because of the strike and it works me up.” Across town, in the Marais neighborhood, a mother had attached a small banner to her buggy urging striking workers to stop being selfish and think about the next generation.

A small free market party under the name of “Liberal Alternative” was planning demonstrations in favor of the reform.

Sarkozy's government believes this as a must-win test of wills. Failing on this initiative will put all of the rest of the reform agenda in jeopardy. Most Parisians appear to be coping with the strike with few problems so far. That could change, as could public opinion, if the strike continues. The mood of the public indicates that they just might turn on the unions if the strike goes on. This could get interesting.

The “Immaterial” Number Grows

When news first broke of a massive embezzlement fraud in the Washington, DC tax office, Chief Financial Officer, Natwar M. Gandhi called the $16 million thefts "immaterial." One wonders if Mr. Gandhi would like to adjust his language and perhaps call it "insignificant" now that the total thefts appear to total more than $30 million.

Federal authorities initially said the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue had lost more than $16 million in a brazen refund scam orchestrated by a mid-level manager. They later upped the figure to $20 million and warned that the damage could be even higher as their investigation continues. Yesterday, law enforcement sources confirmed that taxpayer losses could reach $30 million or more.

The Post's analysis showed that the volume and pace of suspicious activity at the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue reached its peak in the past three years. Of all real estate tax refunds issued in that span, about half appeared suspicious.

And of the $37 million refunded from the start of 2005 to July 2007, the dubious checks total more than $19 million.

Harriette Walters, the former manager in charge of property tax refunds, was arrested Nov. 7 and is charged with signing off on payments to sham companies controlled by family members and others who were in on the scheme. Six people have been charged, including tax employee Diane Gustus, one of several city workers who prepared or handled paperwork leading to the checks.

So far, prosecutors have publicly accused Walters and others of conspiring to fabricate 58 fraudulent refund checks, amounting to $20 million, and then using the sham companies to steer money to themselves. In court papers yesterday, prosecutors said that Walters has "confessed" to the activities and that she "approved each and every fraudulent voucher."

A total of $19 million out of $37 million in refunds in one year were fraudulent? More than half the total was bogus? There are some very, very serious questions that need to be asked and answered about the competency of the Washington, DC government. The voters need to start asking those questions right now. 

Blinded By The Hate

Peter Berkowitz, writing in the Opinion Journal, points out that blind hatred of George Bush is not a good plan for going through life. Berkowitz, a fellow at the Hoover Institute and a professor at George Mason University School of Law, is not trying to be snarky here. He is pointing out that a blind unreasoning hatred of someone tends to blind one to other things as well.

To get the conversation rolling at that D.C. dinner–and perhaps mischievously–I wondered aloud whether Bush hatred had not made rational discussion of politics in Washington all but impossible. One guest responded in a loud, seething, in-your-face voice, "What's irrational about hating George W. Bush?" His vehemence caused his fellow progressives to gather around and lean in, like kids on a playground who see a fight brewing.

Reluctant to see the dinner fall apart before drinks had been served, I sought to ease the tension. I said, gently, that I rarely found hatred a rational force in politics, but, who knows, perhaps this was a special case. And then I tried to change the subject.

But my dinner companion wouldn't allow it. "No," he said, angrily. "You started it. You make the case that it's not rational to hate Bush." I looked around the table for help. Instead, I found faces keen for my response. So, for several minutes, I held forth, suggesting that however wrongheaded or harmful to the national interest the president's policies may have seemed to my progressive colleagues, hatred tended to cloud judgment, and therefore was a passion that a citizen should not be proud of being in the grips of and should avoid bringing to public debate. Propositions, one might have thought, that would not be controversial among intellectuals devoted to thinking and writing about politics.

But controversial they were. Finally, another guest, a man I had long admired, an incisive thinker and a political moderate, cleared his throat, and asked if he could interject. I welcomed his intervention, confident that he would ease the tension by lending his authority in support of the sole claim that I was defending, namely, that Bush hatred subverted sound thinking. He cleared his throat for a second time. Then, with all eyes on him, and measuring every word, he proclaimed, "I . . . hate . . . the . . . way . . . Bush . . . talks."

And so, I told my Princeton audience, in the context of a Bush hatred and a corollary contempt for conservatism so virulent that it had addled the minds of many of our leading progressive intellectuals, Prof. Starr deserved special recognition for keeping his head in his analysis of liberalism and progressivism. Then I got on with my prepared remarks…….

…….In short, Bush hatred is not a rational response to actual Bush perfidy. Rather, Bush hatred compels its progressive victims–who pride themselves on their sophistication and sensitivity to nuance–to reduce complicated events and multilayered issues to simple matters of good and evil. Like all hatred in politics, Bush hatred blinds to the other sides of the argument, and constrains the hater to see a monster instead of a political opponent.

When someone who is a highly educated, incisive thinker can only come up with, "I hate the way Bush talks," as a debating point, something has shorted out. That is the danger of a blind hatred. It is not a good quality, regardless of who the object of hatred is. Berkowitz says that American Prospect Editor Paul Starr's book points to a way to start defusing some of this irrational thinking.

The recipe consists above all in recognizing that constitutional liberalism in America "is the common heritage of both modern conservatives and modern liberals, as those terms are understood in the Anglo-American world," writes Prof. Starr. We are divided not by our commitment to the Constitution but by disagreements–often, to be sure, with a great deal of blood and treasure at stake–over how to defend that Constitution and secure its promise of liberty under law.

I suspect that at some point in the future many people who today suffer from that blind, irrational hatred of George Bush will look back and wonder why they let themselves fall into that trap. Because it is a trap and it does lead one into some terribly simplistic thinking. Not that pointing that out will help in the short term.

Jingle Bells, Spitzer Smells…..

I can hear a rewritten taunting song parody now. Eliot Spitzer, apparently determined to see his approval ratings hit single digits by Thanksgiving, has found a new, sure-to-be unpopular issue to take up. This one is a sure winner of a loser for Spitzer: collecting sales tax on internet purchases for New York residents.

New Yorkers going Christmas shopping online at Amazon.com will find an 8.375% surprise at the virtual cash register, courtesy of Governor Spitzer, who is moving aggressively to collect Internet sales taxes that have gone widely unenforced.

Under a new policy, major electronic retailers, such as Amazon.com, will be required to collect sales tax on all purchases from New York. The policy, based on a novel legal theory, could hasten the end of the Internet's era as a duty-free marketplace if other states follow New York's lead. With the policy, New York immediately took the lead among states that are seeking to tax online commerce.

"I'd say this puts us at the front," one state tax official, who requested anonymity, told The New York Sun.

Having pledged not to raise taxes, Mr. Spitzer is increasingly scrounging for ways to close a projected $4.3 billion deficit next year. State officials estimate that this latest initiative, which goes into effect in December, will bring in about $100 million more each year, split between state and local government tax revenue. Statewide, the sales tax averages about 8%, although in New York City it is 8.375%.

During this year's budget debate, Senate Republicans and business groups labeled many of Mr. Spitzer's revenue-raisers as tax hikes, while Mr. Spitzer insisted he was simply closing loopholes. They are likely to pounce on this effort as well.

Spitzer is putting the onus of collecting taxes on the online vendor. His plan hinges on the "affiliate" programs some e-tailers run. Spitzer's  interpretation is that the affiliate is acting as an "agent" for the vendor.

Under this novel theory, any e-retailer who pays a New York-based Web site operator a commission would be required to start collecting sales taxes on any purchase from New York, regardless of whether it originated from an "affiliate."

Next up: Spitzer will plug the ultimate loophole: If you did not hand over your entire earnings to the state, you're obviously evading some tax somewhere! Genius, Eliot, pure genius. The next poll results should be something to see.

Spitzer is putting the onus of collecting taxes on the online vendor. His plan hinges on the "affiliate" programs some e-tailers run. Spitzer's  interpretation is that the affiliate is acting as an "agent" for the vendor.

Under this novel theory, any e-retailer who pays a New York-based Web site operator a commission would be required to start collecting sales taxes on any purchase from New York, regardless of whether it originated from an "affiliate."

Next up: Spitzer will plug the ultimate loophole: If you did not hand over your entire earnings to the state, you're obviously evading some tax somewhere! Genius, Eliot, pure genius. The next poll results should be something to see.

Storm Warning

Joe Klein, arguably the angry left's favorite media chew toy despite his antipathy toward the Iraq war, has another column that will endear him even further with the nutroots. He points out the obvious, that things honestly are getting better there and that the Democrats are treading in a political minefield if they continue trying to damage the war effort.

Also obvious: There are fewer votes now in Congress–and less cause–to cut off funding for the war than there were last Spring. A renewed campaign on the part of the hapless Democratic leadership to cut off the supplemental funds will only increase the public sense of Democratic futility. It will also play into the very real, and growing, public perception that Democrats are too busy wasting time on symbolic measures (like trying to cut off funds for the war) and shoveling pork (the water projects bill) to pass anything substantive for the public good. Too much time, and political capital, has been wasted fighting Bush legislatively on the war. I'm sure the President and the Republican Party are salivating over the prospect that Democrats will waste more time and capital over it this month…especially at a moment, however fleeting, when the situation on the ground seems to have improved in Iraq. Democrats need to think this over very, very carefully before they proceed.

It is possible that the lower ranked members of the party may yet get the attention of the perennially tin-eared Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, but it is an uphill battle. Despite the gale warning flags, Reid just announced another attempt to cut off funding while Pelosi, in a rare glimmer of sense rescheduled the House attempt after members pointed out that they would rather not have to face the voters over Veteran’s Day having just tried to cut the troops off at the knees.

Klein is a favorite target for the nutroots because he tries hard to be honest, an unforgivable sin to the perpetually outraged. How’s the inbox holding up, Joe?