Rudy Habla Espanol, GOP Moves On
January 10th, 2008, 11:09 am · 4 Comments · posted by Joaquin
Looking for his firewall, Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani is trying to find his mojo in Florida, hoping warmer weather in a sunshine state will revive his struggling campaign.
So, with the upcoming February primary in Florida fast approaching, Giuliani is going full tilt in the southern state in order to keep his presidential bid alive. The vote in populous southern Florida is critical, so Rudy has radio and TV ads broadcasting his message in the Miami area, and guess what? Some of the Rudy ads, in fact many of the ads, are in SPANISH.
I don’t usually go upper caps, but ain’t it something to see a leading Republican presidential candidate broadcasting campaign ads in SPANISH after all of the GOP bluster about building border fences, deporting illegal immigrants and sealing borders, blah, blah, blah.
The anti-immigration bluster seems to be cooling among the surviving GOP prez candidates as they focus on other topics. Still, if Rudy and his political competitors really believed in all of the red-meat, anti-immigrant gospel they’ve been dishing to the party faithful, shouldn’t all of his ads be in English and not SPANISH?
Giuliani was quite friendly to immigrants of all types during his days as New York City’s mayor, praising their work ethic and contributions to his city. In that context, it’s not surprising that Rudy would go SPANISH in some of his Florida ads, but he better hope Betty Jo in Tulsa and Billy Bob in Spartanburg, S.C., don’t find out that Giuliani has gone Mexican in some of his sunshine state ads.
Actually, as the kids would say, Rudy is reaching out to the Cuban-American vote, which has long leaned Republican and likes purported tough guys like Giuliani. Rudy has bigger items on his plate right now than placating the hardline anti-immigrant wing of his party, with the chief concerns being holding off a surging John McCain and the emerging candidacy of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
The next Republican presidential nominee will come from one of the above three choices. Giuliani, McCain and Huckabee in past political lives have all acted like rational, compassionate human beings when it comes to the issue of immigration. Their general views on such a key issue puts them at odds with a noisy wing of their party who put their opposition to more immigration into the U.S. - legal or illegal - as their top concern, what with all of those Mexicans tarnishing American culture and violating our sovereignity.
But I wonder. If the anti-immigrant noise we’ve heard so much about in recent years is driving the GOP, why is it that all the of Republican presidential candidates of that ilk have gotten no where in their campaign bids? Tom Tancredo, the leading GOP demagogue on immigration, couldn’t even get to 1 percent in national polls. Mean-spirited Duncan Hunter, the self-described king of border fences, peaked at just north of 1 percent, and mumbling Fred Thompson has bored everyone to tears, if not indifference.
Meanwhile, the GOP king of pandering, Mitt Romney, is fading fast after airing a number of attack ads in Iowa and New Hampshire in which he aggressively went after McCain and Huckabee for being too friendly to immigrants, you know, the whole amnesty canard. So that leaves McCain, who reminds GOP crowds that immigrants are God’s children, too. And then there’s Huckabee, who as governor of Arkansas, spoke out forcefully against the right-wing immigrant bashers in his state, and of course, the immigrant-friendly Mayor Rudy.
Here’s what is becoming apparent. The strident anti-immigration crowd isn’t even a majority in their own party. They occupy, at most, 15 to 20 percent of the American electorate, but it seems like more since they all migrate to talk radio shows to yak about the foreign invaders ruining America. If these yakkers are so strong, so powerful, how is it that not one of their guys got anywhere in the Republican presidential race?
This development led one of the Fox News talking heads to ask Tancredo recently if the whole immigration issue was essentially dead, becoming largely irrelevant to the surviving field of GOP candidates. The ever cheerful Tancerdo said he hoped not because the Balkanization of America is just around the corner, the sort of collapse that fellow nativist Pat Buchanan warned was about to tear the U.S. apart 25 years ago. Gee, I guess America survived that crisis pretty well.
So, I’d say to Rudy, go ahead with your campaign ads in Spanish. The power of the paper tiger that is the angry, anti-immigrant/talk radio nation is receding faster than the hair on Fred Thompson’s head. Viva Rudy! Si se puede con Giuliani! Oh, wait a minute, isn’t Barack Obama using that line?
January 11th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Of course, there are plenty of other studies that say the opposite, such as a comprehensive study last year by the Texas Comptroller’s office that concluded that the taxes, sales taxes, fees, rents, house payments, etc., paid by illegal immigrants outweights what they take out in the way of services, (to the tune of several hundred million dollars in Texas).
Also, a good many children of illegal immigrants are U.S. citizens, and until the Constitution is changed, people born here are Americans, whether some like it or not. Thus, as citizens, those children are eligible to receive services if the proper agencies give their approval.
Illegal immigrants are not eligible to receive food stamps and a number of other government programs, and that is as it should be. The notion that millions of illegal immigrants are receiving such benefits is an urban myth, all talk, no proof.
Aside from all of that, the column is about the fading potency of the immigration issue in the Republican presidential race. From the Politico website on Friday there’s this: “Also helping McCain, (in Thursday GOP debate), was the decision by Fox News to downplay the immigration issue. It only came up in the last 10 minutes of the forum.”
And from a Miami Herald column: “The anti-immigration fervor barks, but it doesn’t bite. (Mitt) Romney invested millions of dolars to become the hero of anti-immigration forces, but that didn’t translate into votes in Iowa and New Hampshire.”
January 14th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
To say that the illegals put more into the system than they take is an outrage and a bold face lie. I hope that you don’t expect any clear thinking person to believe that. You Liberals love to quote the Constitution, but where in that Constitution does it say my money should be taken away from me and given to someone else for SERVICES? You can’t because it isn’t there. This will be an interesting election, as I do not think that the Liberal Democrat giveaway is going to fly this time around. I see the biggest Republican landslide since Reagan. We will see.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Your immigration restrictionist candidates have gotten no where, dude. There is not a Reagan in this GOP field,not even close. Either McCain or Huckabee vs. Clinton or Obama is not going to produce a Reagan landslide of a GOP candidate carryiing 48 states.
Perhaps y`all can get behind a Lou Dobbs candidacy so he can get 3 percent of the national vote that is crazy angry, mad-as-hell about all of the foreign invaders.