Post DREAM ACT Vote

How do you pretend you are for something, but inside you know you are faking? Perhaps a number of poltiicians (esp. democrats) are doing this now that immigration has become such a hot potato.

I wonder how all this will influence the 2008 presidential election.

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The GOP’s deep internal divisions over how to fix the problem also have contributed to the congressional stalemate.
Local votes could be immigration kingpin
By: Gebe Martinez
Politico.com
Oct 30, 2007 06:52 PM EST

...In Virginia, three-fourths of voters surveyed recently by The Washington Post said the immigration issue would be important in their votes for the state legislature. A year ago, the issue ranked near the bottom of state voters’ concerns.

But many Democrats have yet to be convinced immigration is the third rail of politics, despite that pronouncement by House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois.

...“It’s clear that this is the weapon of choice for Republicans right now. They have nothing else going,” said Chris Dorval, a Democratic activist who has pulled together campaign professionals to study the impact of the immigration issue on the elections. His group found that, in 2006, candidates who specifically focused on immigration usually lost.

...Last week, they drove the defeat of the bipartisan Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act, which would have allowed children of illegal immigrants who entered the United States before age 16 and lived here at least five years to gain conditional legal status and eventual citizenship if they were to attend college or serve in military for at least two years.

And in playing to the conservative base — while ignoring the party’s business community, which favored a comprehensive immigration plan — the GOP presidential primary race has become a wrestling match over who can throw down illegal immigrants faster. By doing so, they have written off the minority vote that is critical to winning the presidency.

“They are playing the game they are in right now, which is to win the primaries,” Autry said of the Republican presidential candidates. “I don’t think they are thinking one iota about the general election right now.”

Meanwhile, the Democrats — more specifically, Emanuel and House Democratic leaders — have run away from the immigration debate but have not escaped voters’ demands that the federal government do something about it. Sounding like they want to crack down on illegal immigration, but doing nothing about it, may be worse, Dorval conceded.

The more Democrats “keep kicking the can down the road and pretend they hate [illegal] immigrants, too, the worse it’s going to get,” Dorval said. “People are very smart, and they are tired of the issue...”


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6614.html