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…