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July 10, 2008

Cannon’s Firing: The Treason Lobby Attempts Damage Control

By Marcus Epstein

That the defeat of pro-amnesty Congressmen Chris Cannon at the hands of political neophyte Jason Chaffetz was over immigration should be simple conventional wisdom.

Were it not for Cannon’s long and vocal support for amnesty, there is absolutely no reason why Chris Cannon should have had any problem in a Republican primary. Other than immigration, he has near impeccable conservative credentials—with a 96% lifetime American Conservative Union rating. He had oodles of money and outspent Chaffetz 7-1. He had the support of the entire Republican Establishment from George Bush (still popular in Utah) on down. And having the last name Cannon in Utah is like having the name Kennedy in Massachusetts or Byrd in Virginia.

Needless to say, the Treason Lobby is attempting damage control by claiming both that illegal immigration was not the main factor driving his defeat. Michael Barone, for example, writes, "Chris Cannon's defeat made [stopping a future ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ bill] a little, but only a very little, likelier."

Henry Fernandez [email him]of the Center for American Progress claims, it is "apparently not true is that there was a connection between Cannon’s immigration moderation [sic] and his loss."

This is all very interesting to me, because for the past three election cycles, my employer Team America, a political action committee founded to support anti-amnesty candidates, had supported primary challenges to Chris Cannon.

Each time we went after him, Cannon would pose as a restrictionist—he would say he’d secure the borders, oppose amnesty etc. Then, when he won, the Open Borders lobby would claim that the election was a referendum on Amnesty. And Cannon would go back to his pro-Amnesty ways.

In 2004 Cannon was challenged by Mark Throckmorton. At that point, many in the Open Borders world still openly used the word amnesty. But this was when Chris Cannon began to say he opposed amnesty. Following Cannon’s defeat of Mark Throckmorton, Tamar Jacoby [email her] wrote, "The immigration reform movement dodged a bullet" and this proved "Americans aren’t anti-immigrant—far from it" Grover Norquist said it showed "Immigrant-bashing failed."

In 2006, Cannon was challenged again, by John Jacob. The race was well timed—immediately after the Senate had passed its first comprehensive amnesty. Cannon suddenly came out against the Senate Bill. He ran on his record on border security, and accused all of his opponents of being racists.

It still looked like Jacob was going to pull it off. But in the last week of the campaign he didn’t run any ads, although he had plenty of money in the bank, and said the Devil was behind his personal financial problems. Cannon went on to win by a healthy margin.

But nonetheless exit polls showed that only 4.5% of the population wanted illegal aliens to stay in the country permanently and only 30.5% thought they should be able to stay as "temporary workers who should return home eventually". Most likely due to Cannon’s apparent last-minute conversion on immigration 35% of voters who said all illegals should return home immediately still voted for Cannon.

Despite this, the open borders lobby took his victory as a mandate for amnesty. Grover Norquist gloated that the election was "very helpful" to getting amnesty. Michael Barone [Email him] wrote: "It is conventional wisdom in many quarters that Republican voters overwhelmingly favor a border-security-only approach to immigration. Cannon's victory casts some doubt on that."

So how can these same people claim that this election, suddenly, has nothing to do with immigration?

They have one shred of misleading evidence, a discussion of an exit poll in the Salt Lake Tribune

“It appears the election simply did not, as some have argued, hinge on immigration.

"‘It may be a victory for them, but that's different than saying that's the reason he lost,’ says Quin Monson, assistant director of the center. ‘I'm sure they're celebrating for whatever reason, but there's not a lot of evidence’ to support their claims the issue brought down Cannon.  

“Roughly the same number of voters who were highly concerned about immigration in 2006, when Cannon won his last primary, showed up this time, when Cannon got whipped. Exit poll results show that more of those who said they had a tougher view on undocumented immigrants voted for Cannon's opponent, Jason Chaffetz, but a majority of those who backed plans like a guest-worker program also favored Chaffetz.”[Why did GOP faithful fire Rep. Cannon?| Immigration not the reason, BYU poll says, By Thomas Burr and Robert Gehrke, The Salt Lake Tribune, June 29, 2008]

The problem was that BYU hadn’t posted the results of the exit poll online. But, fortunately, they were kind enough to send me some more information on the poll. It suggests a very different interpretation than Quinn’s.

There was only one question on immigration:

“Thinking about immigrants who are now living in the U.S. illegally, which of the following options for immigration reform comes closest to your view?

So only 4.1 percent supported allowing the illegals being able to stay in the U.S. permanently, much less on a "pathway to citizenship". And only 24.9% thought that most illegals should be temporary workers.

Of course "temporary workers" is usually a euphemism for amnesty. So it may seem discouraging that a majority of voters apparently showed some, very limited, support for temporary workers.

But the definition of "temporary" is critical in this election. Chaffetz’ platform included a well-intentioned plan that he called a "pathway to deportation" whereby illegal aliens could come forward get a truly temporary visa, so that they could get their affairs in order before their deportation, backed up serious criminal consequences if they did not go home.

Personally, I do not think this is a particularly wise policy. Unfortunately, we cannot snap our fingers and deport all illegal aliens tomorrow. Once the writing is on the wall that their presence in this country will not be tolerated, there will be plenty of time for them to get the message, collect their things and go home.

But my objections aside, it is clearly not an amnesty or even the "temporary worker" programs that are introduced as part of the "comprehensive immigration reform" supported by Cannon and his ilk.

Nonetheless, Chris Cannon used this as an excuse to try to campaign to Chaffetz’ right on immigration, "Here's a guy who before the convention was acting like Utah's version of Tom Tancredo, who now...in his Web site says illegal should be able to stay and get a temporary pass, and not do anything,"

This became a major sticking point in the election. But Chaffetz did a good job of clarifying his position and making it clear he opposed amnesty, and would oppose any importation of foreign workers. No doubt that a large percentage of voters who said they supported some form of "temporary workers" had Chaffetz’ plan in mind—not Cannon’s "temporary workers" who will stay here permanently.

Furthermore, another exit poll was conducted by the Utah Student Research Group. It found that immigration was virtually tied with the economy as the top issue for voters (and note that this is for the most important issue facing the country—not the issue that affected your vote). Of the people who found immigration to be one of their top issues, Chaffetz beat Cannon 79.4 to 20.6%

Cannon’s defeat is one of the greatest electoral victories for the patriotic immigration reform movement for many years— no matter how the Treason Lobby tries to spin it.

Marcus Epstein [send him mail] is the founder of the Robert A Taft Club and the executive director of the The American Cause and Team America PAC. A selection of his articles can be seen here. The views he expresses are his own.