This will trigger some reactions:
Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
It’s a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It’s also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama’s stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in California, where driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis.
Contrary to some of the campaign hoopla, Obama is quite obviously willing to take on unpopular positions, because this is not an issue about which many Americans are neutral. There is massive opposition to driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, and it is absolutely not limited to the GOP. (See here for an example.) I can’t imagine that this will play out well for him.
Meanwhile — while everybody was focused on Bill’s antics in South Carolina last week, Hillary found an immigration hot-button of her own:
“Anybody who committed a crime in this country or in the country they came from has to be deported immediately, with no legal process. They are immediately gone,” Mrs. Clinton told a town hall meeting in Anderson, S.C., Thursday. On Wednesday, she told a crowd in North Bergen, N.J., that such criminals “absolutely” need to be deported. A day earlier, she told a rally in Salinas, Calif., that aliens with criminal records “should be deported, no questions asked.”
No legal process? What the heck does that mean? Are we talking about the US here?
Heh. At least they’re back to focusing on the issues…
Given that most political refugees are considered to have committed “crimes” in their country of origin (in some cases, simply trying to leave is considered a “crime”), I’l bet that doesn’t play well in Miami – or any other place with a large immigrant population and no Sheriff Arpaio.
And, since her husband was found to have committed the crime of perjury – does that me he’s gone, too? Maybe we just discovered the truth…
~EdT.
I don’t consider all ilegal immigrants crimminals because most of them work and send all their pay check to their families back at their homeland.Althogh I’m not saying that they’ re all the same way but we should think about them too .I think that what a canidate do is try to make a change for the good and not the bad.Also our economy can chage alot if they are not here. Some immigrants are being separeted from their families because they are not legal their is no such thing as being legal because immigrant are always going to be in the United States no matter what they build or do. Some people are hil;arious because they are hispanic and they don’t defend their race and I know that not all immigrants are crimminals.