Commentary: Immigration politics could bite GOP again

[babylonsister]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/29/93108/immigration-politics-could-bite.html

Commentary: Immigration politics could bite GOP again

By Carl Leubsdorf | The Dallas Morning News


"He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind," concludes a well-known biblical proverb. Republican immigration hard-liners may be about to learn that lesson — again.

In the mid-1990s, California Gov. Pete Wilson's anti-immigrant policies damaged his party's standing with Hispanics in the nation's largest state. A decade later, a GOP congressional stand against immigration reform spurred nationwide demonstrations and helped the Democrats reverse a modest GOP increase in Hispanic support attracted by President George W. Bush.

This time, Arizona Republicans may have unwittingly given another boost to Democratic support in the nation's fastest-growing demographic group by enacting a law giving local police the authority to round up suspected illegal immigrants and thus thrusting the contentious issue back onto the national political stage.

Whether that impact is more long-term than short-term is hard to say. To be fair, the politics of illegal immigration aren't clear-cut, and members of both parties play politics with the issue.

But this surely won't help Republicans achieve a goal that many strategists regard as crucial to their long-term hopes: attracting an increased number of this culturally conservative, rapidly growing voter group. Barack Obama's election ensures black voters will stay overwhelmingly Democratic; the whites who favor Republicans constitute an ever-declining portion of the electorate.

snip//

But unless the courts save the Arizona Republicans from themselves, the one thing that will probably survive the year's political games is a law that, at the very least, is yet another negative GOP signal toward Hispanics.

[Stuart G]

1. It won't help Thugs.......good.

Latinos know who hates em.
Thugs hate everyone....cept themselves..poor, middle class, asians, jews, non whites, workers, unions, teachers..etc..

[Bitwit1234]

2. See how the Media is spinning this deputy sheriff getting shot

They have a gang of drug weed growers, and the deputy gets in a gun fight. They don't say they are drug growers suspects, they say they are illegal immigrants. How do we know they are immigrants. They might be a gang who traveled over the border to take advantage of the wide open spaces to grow this marijuana.