WHICH IMBECILES ARE LISTENING TO RAHM EMANUEL?

Many of the Democratic candidates who went to the Chicago training the DCCC has, unconvincingly tried to claim had nothing to do with them, have derided Rahm Emanuel's awful advice that they throw Hispanic voters under the bus and "move to the right" on immigration. But it wasn't only Emanuel's handful of pet aasskissers who have decided to doom their candidacies with this idiotic stand. Apparently, even as most Democratic candidates refuse to move to the right to please Emanuel, John McCain and Emanuel are on the same page. Today's Arizona Republic documents McCain's shift on immigration. "Sen. John McCain has hardened his position on immigration reform, hoping the new stand will make his presidential campaign more appealing to conservative Republican voters." OK, "hardened" means "move to the right" and I guess when your base is the GOP primary voter, it makes some kind of sense. But Emanuel has never fought against Republicans in an election-- only against progressive Democrats-- so he doesn't understand that the Democratic base isn't the Republican base.

The comprehensive approach he championed for years, one that emphasized a guest-worker program and legalization for those here illegally, has taken a back seat to a plan that puts a priority on tightening border security and beefing up enforcement.

The enforcement-first approach marks a dramatic shift for McCain, R-Ariz., who used his border-state credentials and maverick persona to become the leading Republican proponent in Congress of comprehensive immigration reform. But the comprehensive plan, which failed to move through Congress again this summer, divided the GOP and unleashed an anti-amnesty grass-roots movement vehemently opposed to letting undocumented immigrants gain legal status, even if they had to earn it.

The Center for American Progress put out a study today that shows Emanuel is dead wrong and Democratic candidates who follow his advice are as sure to be defeated as the candidates who followed his advice to tone down their opposition to the Iraq War in 2006.

In the months leading up to last Tuesday's elections in Virginia, when conservatives lost control of the state Senate for the first time in a decade  , conservatives made punitive measures against undocumented immigrants their central rallying cry. Tuesday's voting results are "proving that, while immigration is a concern to people -- and it should be -- it is not returning the votes that they thought it would," said state Sen. Richard Saslaw (D). The conservative National Review said the results proved that immigration would not be "a silver bullet" for the GOP, and a conservative strategist conceded, "They went for a magic bullet with immigration, and it didn't work." Dan Restrepo, Director of the Americas Project at the Center for American Progress, said, "Instead of falling into the restrictionist, nativist trap of expressing frustration with quality of life issues by lashing out at immigrants and rewarding those advocating harsh enforcement-only measures," Virginians voted on issues that have the most direct effect on their daily lives, such as education and transportation. Voters are sending a message that stirring up fear and hatred of immigrants is neither a means of solving the country's current immigration problems, nor a way to win elections. Americans favor comprehensive and practical approaches to immigration-- tougher border enforcement coupled with restricting certain public benefits for undocumented immigrants and permanently addressing the status of those individuals already here.

...A new report by the National Council of La Raza states that harsh, punitive measures are having devastating consequences on children's psychological, educational, economic, and social well-being. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center said that there were 242 more "hate groups" in 2006 than there were in 2000, a rise "that is almost entirely due to hate groups exploiting the issue of immigration." Speaking of white supremacists' involvement in the anti-immigration movement, Potok said, "Immigration, I think, has worked for these groups extremely well because it's such an easy issue to cast in terms of skin color." "Virtually none of the major national [anti-immigration] organizations are untainted by their connections to white nationalist organizations, and as a movement, they have been more willing to play to a white nationalist base, while giving lip service to diversity and tolerance," said Devin Burghart of the Center for New Community and author of a forthcoming book on the recent rise of nativism in the United States. "What that has done has created, in many respects, a backlash to the gains of the civil rights movement," Burghart added. Certainly not all people who oppose immigration are racist, but the tactics of the anti-immigration movement -- including racial profiling, false stories of diseased Mexicans, rampant bullying on talk-radio, and the outrageous, inaccurate statements of government officials -- make it difficult to give anti-immigration forces the benefit of the doubt.

AMERICANS WANT REAL REFORM: "The [Virginia] election results told us that while the American people are unhappy with our broken immigration system, they are looking for leaders willing to step up and solve the problem, rather than simply offering empty rhetoric and scapegoating," New Democrat Network's Simon Rosenberg commented. Virginians "know this crackdown on illegal immigration is posturing," state Sen. Russ Potts (R) said. "The only entity in the world that could solve that problem is the federal government," he said. Poll after poll after poll show a majority of Americans support comprehensive reform that includes an earned pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in this country. Comprehensive reform not only serves the interests of the economy, but also national security purposes. For example, when the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine surveyed national security experts from across the political spectrum, "70 percent said that improving the visibility of the flow of people and cargo through ports of entry is the  best way to improve U.S. security, while only six percent said they would opt for building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border." Unfortunately, conservatives appear determined to defeat comprehensive reform, focusing instead on driving up fear and hatred of immigrants rather than offering a viable solution.

The Progressive States Network and the DNC both offered approaches at odd's with the Emanuel's and the bigots'.

In 2006, many analysts raised fears that anti-immigrant fervor would doom progressive candidates.  Instead, progressives won big in those elections.  Immigration was a non-issue for many voters and fueled a backlash last year AGAINST conservative candidates by many Latino voters who had supported President Bush in 2000.

In 2007, it was more of the same in elections in Virginia and New York where Democrats gained control of the Virginia Senate and expanded control in Long Island's Suffolk County.  Typical headlines read "In the Ballot Booths, No Fixation on Immigration" (Washington Post) and " New York Democrats Say License Issue Had Little Effect" (NY Times). One senior political strategist in Virginia said, "The one point on which moderates and conservatives seem to agree is that their party overplayed the illegal immigration issue. They went for a magic bullet with immigration, and it didn't work." 

Instead of urging Democratic candidates to act like Republicans and scapegoat immigrants and Hispanics, Emanuel should be echoing what Howard Dean is saying: "The American people once again rejected the Republican Party's divisive fear mongering on immigration yesterday at the polls, just as they did a year ago. In Virginia and New York Republicans lost ground despite using fear over immigration to try to distract from their Party's failures on border security and immigration reform, and after failing to offer voters real leadership."