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November 05, 2005
 Send
Them A Message! Immigration Reformers Need To Run,
Vote On Their Issue
By
Joe Guzzardi
Run! Run! Run!
Run for elective office, that is.
That was the message from
immigration reform leaders headquartered in Washington,
D.C. to the hundreds who gathered in September for the
annual
Federation for American Immigration Reform’s
national advisory board.
The conference’s theme was “40
Years of Immigration Chaos: the
1965 Act and the Urgent Agenda for America’s
Future.”
And one speaker after another
exhorted the assembled crowd to take the plunge and run
for office, any office. We’ll only get real change,
according to our Beltway beachhead, when we have the
right people in the right places—or the ability to
threaten the politicians who are there now.
As someone who very recently took
that advice—California
governor, Recall Election, 2003—I agree.
It can be tough. But—as U.K. Prime
Minister Mrs. Thatcher
used to say—There Is No Alternative (TINA).
Whatever the personal cost, running
for office is the single best way to get our message
out. My own candidacy got me onto talk radio, network
television news shows and the front page of the Los
Angeles Times,
The Washington Times and
USA Today.
The Sacramento Bee’s
political columnist Daniel Weintrub
spelled out my immigration positions to a tee.
Even
Mickey Kaus plugged me.
The immigration reform movement has
begun to develop quite a few candidates recently. Many
of them—Congressional candidates
Matt Throckmorton,
Kris Kobach,
Vernon Robinson,
James Russell, and
Randy Graf, gubernatorial candidate
Fern Shubert and mayoral candidate
Walter Moore—are no strangers to VDARE.COM readers.
There will be a slew more of them in 2006.
None have won—yet. (Although
immigration reformers did
make a difference in the re-election defeat of
arch-immigration enthusiast U.S.
Senator Spencer Abraham). Of course, that’s entirely
typical of the beginning stages of a nascent political
revolution.
But to give you an example of what
will have to be done differently, let’s analyze the 2004
Arizona Senate race between incumbent Republican
John McCain and his Democratic opponent Stuart
Starky.
No state has been more devastated by illegal immigration
than Arizona. And, with the possible exception of
Edward M. Kennedy, no U.S. Senator has been a greater
enabler for open borders than
McCain.
In an
October pre-election debate against McCain, Starky
showed actually some signs of life on the immigration
issue.
While Starky still could not by any
stretch be called an ideal immigration reform candidate,
he did
make these points:
At the same time,
McCain’s immigration platform consisted of these
goals:
- More help for legal immigrants
once they arrive in the US
With Arizona in an apparent uproar
over illegal aliens—and actually about to pass
Proposition 200—you might accept that out of
sheer disgust voters would back Starky on the premise
that no one could be worse than McCain.
But that isn’t what happened. When
the final tally was in, McCain won
77 percent of the vote trouncing Starky who came in
a distant second with 20%.
Amazingly—at least to me—McCain won
the illegal-alien beleaguered
Cochise, Pima and Yuma Counties by stunning
margins…75 percent, 73 percent and 75 percent
respectively.
Quite obviously, many Arizonans
voted for Proposition 200—and McCain.
Why didn’t Starky do better?
Well, let me count the ways. He was
an inexperienced, Jewish Democrat (note: I’m a
Democrat too) in a heavily Republican state.
Some of Starky’s other positions
couldn’t have helped him. He espoused
decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana. And Starky
favored withdrawing troops from Iraq…an idea not as
popular a year ago as it is today.
And, as a primary school teacher,
Starky didn’t have the
major donors behind him that McCain does.
McCain, chairman of the Senate
Commerce Committee,
spent $4.8 million to Starkey’s $13,000.
Even I raised more money than
Starky!
But while Starky was at a distinct
disadvantage no matter how you look at it, the reason he
lost was because not enough people voted for him.
I know how absurdly simplistic that
sounds. But that’s the brutal bottom line. Voters
preferred McCain by a ratio of 3-1. (Which means
Starky’s donors got much better value for their buck—but
still…)
Need I remind you that since his
2004 re-election,
McCain back at his usual tricks, most notably S.
1033, the so-called
Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act?
And, as always, McCain is busily
pushing harder than ever with his chums at the
Chamber of Commerce for
more cheap labor.
In the end, McCain was saved
because of party loyalty.
In the end, immigration reformers
will have to place immigration reform above party.
I predict that immigration
reformers will take a page out of the right-to-life
playbook—ironic, because some
prominent immigration reformers come out of the
population control movement.
Candidates who pledge to end Roe
vs. Wade have the automatic support of anti-abortion
voters. No other issue exists in their mind.
Their issue doesn’t even poll as
well as immigration reform. But the right-to-lifers have
captured one of the major parties and set American
politics on its ear.
The immigration reform community
needs to adopt that same single-mindedness.
Repeat after me:
“I don’t care what party he
represents! I don’t care where he stands on other
issues! I don’t care what his personal background is! I
don’t even care if he can’t win!
“He’s
not the guy in office. He is the guy who speaks for
immigration reform. Therefore, he’s the guy for me.
“I’m going to make my vote
count—by sending a message!”
Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English at the Lodi
Adult School, has been writing a weekly newspaper column
since 1988. This column is exclusive to VDARE.COM. |
