Immigration (Spin) Control

Immigration (Spin) Control

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113409486645718054.html?modhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB113409486645718054.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

Tuesday's Orange County contest to fill the House seat vacated when Chris Cox moved to the Securities and Exchange Commission featured Republican State Senator John Campbell and Jim Gilchrist, a third-party candidate backed by anti-immigrant conservatives. The race was supposed to demonstrate the effectiveness of immigration as a political issue. Instead, it showed that border restrictionists are a vocal minority unable to mobilize enough people to turn an election -- even in one of the most conservative GOP districts.

Mr. Campbell, who ran on traditional conservative themes of lower federal spending, tax reform and national security, won the five-man contest in a walk with 45%. Mr. Gilchrist is a co-founder of the Minutemen citizens' border patrol promoted relentlessly by CNN's Lou Dobbs and his Fox running mate, Bill O'Reilly. Mr. Gilchrist made militarizing the Mexican border the centerpiece of his campaign, raising some $600,000 and getting extraordinary media attention. Yet he still came in third with 25%, trailing a Democrat who won 28% despite spending only one-fourth as much money.

<snip>

The real political danger for Republicans comes from the vocal restrictionist minority who want to drive GOP candidates back into the demographic box canyon they've walked into so often in the past. If they become the overtly anti-immigration party, Republicans run the risk of permanently alienating another fast-growing ethnic constituency, in this case Hispanic Americans.
The GOP did this with the Irish and Italians in the 1920s, with Asians in Hawaii after World War II, and with Hispanics in California with Proposition 187 in the 1990s. A Republican in California will soon be able to win 70% of the white vote and still lose statewide if he can't pick up more Hispanic votes. not to mention the blacks in the 1960's italic mine
Republicans also run the risk of doing tangible harm to their own business supporters, as well as to the broader economy. A story yesterday in the North County Times of San Diego led with this: "A growing labor shortage in California's agricultural industry has local farmers bracing for a tough -- and expensive -- winter harvest." Among the causes: "increased border enforcement that is reducing the number of illegal immigrants entering the country," competition for workers from other industries, and "the lack of a guest-worker program to allow undocumented immigrants to work legally."