Candidates Keeping Pro-Amnesty Comments To Themselves (pro-enforcement candidates much more vocal this season)

A timely post from http://www.numbersusa.com/ about the 2010 midterm campaign. This follows this post about Jessica Alba's worldviews and  this post about the Civil War in the DEMOCRATIC PARTY as opposed to the much covered one on the Republican side. This follows this post about the border with Mexico and the Falcon Lake murder and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE!

Candidates Keeping Pro-Amnesty Comments To Themselves (pro-enforcement candidates much more vocal this season)


By Roy Beck,  posted on NumbersUSA



I am really encouraged by some campaign observations from the Humphrey Institute in Minnesota. They indicate a lot about what politicians this fall think voters want to hear. (Hint: Voters don't want to hear about rewarding illegal aliens in any way . . . or increasing the rate of new foreign workers.)



Sasha Asianian of Minnesota Public Radio interviewed me about immigration as a campaign issue for congressional candidates. But I learned much more from her.



REPUBLICAN ELITE ADVISORS LOSE AS GOP CANDIDATES AVOID ADVICE TO STAY SILENT



I was most encouraged by what Sasha reported from Eric Ostermaier who writes the SmartPolitics blog for the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota. His survey of congressional races across the country found:



Overall, about one in two Republican incumbents were focusing on illegal immigration.

-- Eric Ostermaier, Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota.



And their focus has been on more and better enforcement, he indicated.



This is a great defeat for the great gurus of the national Republican Party who have been advising nearly all GOP candidates to avoid the immigration issue. Most of the top advisors to the Republican Party want candidates to avoid promising getting tough on immigration because those advisors are hopeful that they can help the U.S. Chamber of Commerce push through big immigration increases in the next Congress.



Sorry, Republican elites, it sounds like half your Party's congressional candidates are promising to get tougher on immigration. And next to none of the others are taking the other side.



Candidates with good political sense listen to their voters. I'm sure these candidates realize that the voters want to hear promises of enforcement.



VOICES FOR LENIENCY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS AREN'T THERE



The open-borders websites regularly point to bogus polling to say that the majority of Americans want "comprehensive immigration reform" and its components of increased immigration and legalization for millions of illegal alien workers and amnesty for the employers who hire them.



If that were really true, wouldn't there be a lot of candidates promising to push that very agenda?



With this being such a challenging political year for Democrats, one would think a lot of them would be trying to gain more votes by talking up a comprehensive amnesty on the campaign trail.



But Ostermaier said only one in five Democrats is mentioning immigration in their campaigns.



And visible among those are moderate Democrats who are emphasizing their support for stricter enforcement, he said.



Very few Democrats are campaigning on comprehensive immigration reform or the Dream Act amnesty for younger illegal aliens, he said.



That isn't surprising, Ostermaier said, with polls showing about 70% of Americans favoring a "get tough" stance on illegal immigration.



Of course, we know that at least a third of the Members of Congress would love nothing more than to pass an amnesty. The silence of most of them about this on the campaign trail is a loud message indeed about what politicians are hearing -- and believing -- from their constituents.



ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA



NumbersUSA's blogs are copyrighted and may be republished or reposted only if they are copied in their entirety, including this paragraph, and provide proper credit to NumbersUSA. NumbersUSA bears no responsibility for where our blogs may be republished or reposted.



Views and opinions expressed in blogs on this website are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect official policies of NumbersUSA.