Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. His e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

Census projection

USA Today
August 14, 2008

The number of minorities in the United States is growing so briskly that non-Hispanic whites will lose their majority status in 2042, years before demographers had previously projected, according to census data released Wednesday.

The population is surging on almost all fronts, the new figures show. There will be 400 million people in the U.S. in 31 years, up from fewer than 305 million now.

The swelling numbers will transform Americans’ standard of living from the environment to public schools, demographers and public policy experts say.

“It affects quality of life in very important ways,” said Mark Mather, who studies U.S. demographic trends for the Population Reference Bureau, a research group in Washington, D.C. “We’re already experiencing that in traffic congestion, in schools and in our crowded coastal areas.”

Dramatic growth in the numbers of legal and illegal immigrants, especially Hispanics, has propelled the increase. Annual immigration this year is about 1 million and is projected to double by 2050.

Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, said the earlier projections were low because they underestimated immigration.

“We’ve measured a much higher immigration in the ’90s,” he said. “In this decade, those high levels continued.”

Census projections in 2000 forecast that minorities in the nation would become a majority in 2059, 17 years later than previously forecast. The latest figures show that in 2050, non-Hispanic whites will have fallen to 46 percent of the population.

Since this article is extremely brief, I would like anyone that decides to post/respond to it, to focus on the ramifications of these numbers and the changes likely to ensue as a result of these demographic changes.  Be thorough in your thought-process and feel free to provide additional data and statistics to support your views.  Kautzman

Number to reach 438 million by 2050, study says

N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post
February 12, 2008

The number of Hispanics in the United States will triple by 2050 and represent nearly 30 percent of the population if trends continue, according to a report released Monday.

The study by the nonpartisan, Washington-based Pew Research Center also found that nearly one in five Americans will be foreign-born in 2050, compared with about one in eight today. Asian-Americans, representing 5 percent of the population today, are expected to boost their share to 9 percent.

Blacks are projected to maintain their current 13 percent share. Non-Hispanic whites will still be the nation’s largest group, but they will drop from 67 percent of U.S. residents to 47 percent.

Overall, the U.S. population will increase by 47 percent from 296 million in 2005 to 438 million by 2050, with newly arriving immigrants accounting for 47 percent of the rise, and their U.S.-born children and grandchildren 35 percent.

The report offers a picture of the possible long-term effects of the immigration surge that began after 1965, when Congress ended a quota system that had nearly eliminated immigration from non-European countries since the 1920s.

Because of a declining birthrate among U.S.-born women, immigrants and their U.S.-born children and grandchildren already account for most of the population increase over the last several decades. The study projects that by 2025, the foreign-born share of the population will surpass the peak recorded during the wave of immigration between 1860 and 1920, when foreign-born residents represented as much as 15 percent of the U.S. population.

But the study’s authors said immigration will do little to offset the more than doubling of the nation’s elderly population as baby boomers age. By 2050, people older than 65 will make up 19 percent of the population, compared with 12 percent in 2005, while the share of working-age people will shrink from 63 percent to 58 percent.

Today, there are about 59 children or elderly people per 100 working-age adults. By 2050, that figure will increase to 72 dependents per 100 working-age adults.

Those who oppose allowing immigration to continue at its current pace interpreted the findings as vindication.

“These numbers underline the fact that immigration is not a solution to the aging of the population,” said Mark Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors further limits on immigration.

The study’s authors noted that even if their projections are accurate, the implications may be different by 2050: Given the high rate of intermarriage between Latinos and members of other ethnic groups, many descendants of today’s Latinos may not even identify as such.

By Gregory Rodriguez

I imagine he said it as if he were confessing a deep, dark secret. And, of course (wink, wink), he had no idea his little confession would make the rounds. But when Sergio Bendixen, Hillary Clinton’s pollster and resident Latino expert, told the New Yorker after her win in New Hampshire that “the Hispanic voter–and I want to say this very carefully–has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates,” he started a firestorm of innuendo that has begun to shape how the media are covering the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in the heavily Hispanic Western states. After the Jan. 19 Nevada caucuses, in which Latino voters supported Senator Clinton by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1, some journalists literally borrowed Bendixen’s analysis word for word before going on to speculate about Barack Obama’s political fortunes in such delegate-rich states as California and Texas. Ignoring the possibility that Nevada’s Latino voters actually preferred Clinton or, at the very least, had fond memories of her husband’s presidency, more than a few pundits jumped on the idea that Latino voters simply didn’t like the fact that her opponent was African American. The only problem with this new conventional wisdom is that it’s wrong. “It’s one of those unqualified stereotypes about Latinos that people embrace even though there’s not a bit of data to support it,” says political scientist Fernando Guerra of Loyola Marymount University, an expert on Latino voting patterns. “Here in Los Angeles, all three black members of Congress represent heavily Latino districts and couldn’t survive without significant Latino support.” Nationwide, no fewer than eight black House members–including New York’s Charles Rangel and Texas’ Al Green–represent districts that are more than 25% Latino and must therefore depend heavily on Latino votes. And there are other examples. University of Washington political scientist Matt Barreto has begun compiling a list of black big-city mayors who have received large-scale Latino support over the past several decades. In 1983, Harold Washington pulled 80% of the Latino vote in Chicago. David Dinkins won 73% in New York City’s mayoral race in 1989. And Denver’s Wellington Webb garnered more than 70% in 1991, as did Ron Kirk in Dallas in 1995 and again in 1997 and ‘99. If he had gone back further, Barreto could have added longtime Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, who won a majority of Latino votes in all four of his re-election campaigns between 1977 and 1989. Are these political scientists arguing that race is irrelevant to Latino voters? Not at all. Hispanics, coming from many countries, are hardly monolithic; but all things being equal, Latino voters would probably prefer to support a Latino candidate over a non-Latino candidate, and a white candidate over a black candidate. That’s largely because they are less familiar with black politicians, as there are fewer big-name black candidates than white ones, and because, stereotypes not withstanding, many Latinos don’t live anywhere near African Americans. California, for example, which has the largest Latino population in the country, is only 6% black. Furthermore, in politics, things are never equal. “It’s all about context,” says Rodolfo de la Garza, a political-science professor at Columbia University. “It always depends on who else is running. Would Latino Democrats vote for a black candidate over a white Republican? Hell, yes. How about over a Latino Republican? I’m very sure they would.” Guerra says name recognition and the role of mediating entities such as unions, political parties and Latino elected officials are also important. For a well-known black politician or incumbent, there is little problem winning Latino voters. But when the candidate is not well-known, it helps to be endorsed by mediating institutions that people trust. Part of Obama’s problem in Nevada was that, apart from the late endorsement by the Culinary Workers’ Union, he didn’t have a lot of that institutional support. And though he has begun to build those relationships in California–including the endorsement of the Latina head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor–he may not have enough time to attain the kind of recognition among Latino voters that Clinton enjoys. But if there’s one thing we’re learning in this historic year, it’s that voters are even less easy to pigeonhole than candidates.

Rodriguez is author of Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America

Froma Harrop
The Providence Journal
December 31, 2007

What would happen if the United States seriously enforced the ban on hiring undocumented workers? We may find out starting Tuesday, when Arizona promises to do it.

The Arizona law is tough. Companies that knowingly employ illegal workers will have their business licenses suspended for a first offense and permanently revoked for the second.

The law clearly sees the workplace – not the state’s 376-mile border with Mexico – as the main front in curbing illegal immigration. As a result, it could very well succeed.

Supporters of open borders predict economic chaos as Arizona companies lose access to cheap labor. Will dishes go unwashed and lawns unmowed? We shall see.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano reluctantly signed the law but vows to enforce it. A moderate Democrat, she maintains a close relationship with the governor of Sonora, the Mexican state to her south. She was also the first American governor to ask for National Guard reinforcements along the border.

Immigration happens to be Washington’s responsibility. Federal law already forbids employers to hire undocumented workers. Until very recently, the Bush administration virtually ignored the ban. Whenever anger at this dereliction grew politically problematic, Bush would stage some new military show at the border.

The troop movements provided a nice distraction but seem to have only modestly cut the flow of illegal immigrants. Folks from every continent enter the United States unlawfully through portals far from Mexico. Nearly half of all undocumented workers came here legally but overstayed their visas.

What the fixation on the border does is create unnecessary friction with Latin America. It seems to single out one ethnic group, discomforting even native-born Hispanics who object to illegal immigration. Roughing up poor peasants makes for an ugly visual, as do high fences facing what’s supposed to be a good neighbor.

Without the job magnet, of course, most illegal aliens would simply not come here. That would free law enforcement to go after the bad actors trying to enter. The Mexican border would become a far more peaceful crossing that allows an easy back-and-forth of shoppers, tourists, friends and family members.

The question remains, how essential is illegal labor to America’s prosperity? One thing is clear: The people who want it should not be providing the answers.

The National Journal asked Napolitano about “business community” complaints that Arizona’s law would hurt the economy. Napolitano said that she hears them, but other parts of the “business community” are telling her, “We’re tired of competing against companies that are hiring illegally and therefore don’t have to pay the same wages we pay.”

And there are non-labor concerns. Explosive population growth, fueled in part by illegal immigration, has created environmental challenges throughout the water-short Southwest. On the social side, a massive influx of impoverished people with little English makes the task of providing education and other services that more vexing.

The president does not seem to share these anxieties. As a cheap-labor conservative, Bush’s warm spot for open borders is understandable.

Less explicable are the views of diversity liberals who otherwise despise the man but attribute his policies to a soulful feeling for Mexico. A recent New Yorker article saw Bush’s tolerance of illegal immigration through the prism of his experience as governor of Texas, a border state with deep Hispanic roots. No mention was made of Bush’s long record as a stomper of labor standards wherever they might impair corporate profits.

Back in Arizona, Napolitano is readying implementation of a major new immigration law. While it is not totally to her liking, she sees few alternatives. When it comes to fixing illegal immigration, Washington won’t become functional anytime soon – and Arizona can’t wait.

By Michael Kinsley

What you are supposed to say about immigration–what most of the presidential candidates say, what the radio talk jocks say–is that you are not against immigration. Not at all. You salute the hard work and noble aspirations of those who are lining up at American consulates around the world. But that is legal immigration. What you oppose is illegal immigration.

This formula is not very helpful. We all oppose breaking the law, or we ought to. Saying that you oppose illegal immigration is like saying you oppose illegal drug use or illegal speeding. Of course you do, or should. The question is whether you think the law draws the line in the right place. Should using marijuana be illegal? Should the speed limit be raised–or lowered? The fact that you believe in obeying the law reveals nothing about what you think the law ought to be, or why.

Another question: Why are you so upset about this particular form of lawbreaking? After all, there are lots of laws, not all of them enforced with vigor. The suspicion naturally arises that the illegality is not what bothers you. What bothers you is the immigration. There is an easy way to test this. Reducing illegal immigration is hard, but increasing legal immigration would be easy. If your view is that legal immigration is good and illegal immigration is bad, how about increasing legal immigration? How about doubling it? Any takers? So in the end, this is not really a debate about illegal immigration. This is a debate about immigration.

And it’s barely a debate at all. On the Democratic side, the arcane issue of whether illegals should be able to get a driver’s license has bitten both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. On the Republican side, the candidates take turns accusing one another of committing some act of human decency toward illegals, and indignantly denying that they did any such thing. Immigration has long divided both parties, with advocates and opponents in each. Among Republicans, support for immigration was economic (corporations), while opposition was cultural (nativists). Among Democrats, it was the reverse: support for immigration was cultural (ethnic groups), while opposition was economic (unions). Now, for whatever reason, support for immigration is limited to an eccentric alliance of high-minded Council on Foreign Relations types, the mainstream media, high-tech entrepreneurs, Latinos, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and President George W. Bush. Everyone else, it seems, is agin.

Maybe the aginners are right, and immigration is now damaging our country, stealing jobs and opportunity, ripping off taxpayers, fragmenting our culture. I doubt it, but maybe so. Certainly, it’s true that we can’t let in everyone who wants to come. There is some number of immigrants that is too many. I don’t believe we’re past that point, but maybe we are. In any event, a democracy has the right to decide that it has reached such a point. There is no obligation to be fair to foreigners.

But let’s not kid ourselves that all we care about is obeying the law and all we are asking illegals to do is go home and get in line like everybody else. We know perfectly well that the line is too long, and we are basically telling people to go home and not come back.

Let’s not kid ourselves, either, about who we are telling this to. To characterize illegal immigrants as queue-jumping, lawbreaking scum is seriously unjust. The motives of illegal immigrants–which can be summarized as “a better life”–are identical to those of legal immigrants. In fact, they are largely identical to the motives of our own parents, grandparents and great-grandparents when they immigrated. And not just that. Ask yourself, of these three groups–today’s legal and illegal immigrants and the immigrants of generations ago–which one has proven most dramatically its appreciation of our country? Which one has shown the most gumption, the most willingness to risk all to get to the U.S. and the most willingness to work hard once here? Well, everyone’s story is unique. But who loves the U.S. most? On average, probably, the winners of this American-values contest would be the illegals, doing our dirty work under constant fear of eviction, getting thrown out and returning again and again.

And how about those of us lucky enough to have been born here? How would we do against the typical illegal alien in a “prove how much you love America” reality TV show?

By Joe Klein

A few days after Thanksgiving, I asked Mike Huckabee what had surprised him about voters over the past six months of campaigning. “The intensity of the immigration issue,” he said immediately, and then added, “I honestly don’t know why it’s gotten so hot.” Huckabee gets points for candor: most of the presidential candidates I’ve spoken with in recent months feel the same way but aren’t about to say so. It is difficult to spend a day on the trail and not see the anger explode.

This is especially true in the Republican Party. John McCain, the sponsor of immigration-reform legislation, has been a target. During a recent town-hall meeting in Hopkinton, N.H., a heavily muscled young man with closely cropped hair began to shout about “open borders” as the issue “that will destroy this country … You can’t imagine the amount of anger your average European Christian American feels about the multicultural tower of babble.” He raised the possibility of “civil war.” McCain usually turns warrior when confronted with such blatant racism, but sensing the heat in the room, he held his fire this time, calmly saying “I will do everything in my power to secure our borders … But on the larger issue you raise, I believe that people who have come here [legally] from other countries … are our greatest strength.”

There are signs of festering intolerance even among Democratic audiences, noticeably in Iowa, which has seen a surge of Latino immigration in recent years. The Democratic candidates are uniformly in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for those who have entered the country illegally. But they receive sharp–pointed–applause when they say illegals should “have to speak English” before becoming citizens. When I asked Hillary Clinton about that, she said she’d noticed it too and added, “During the 1990s, I cannot remember being asked about immigration … Why? Because the economy was working … And average Americans didn’t have to go around looking for someone to blame.”

Huckabee, who is making gains among working-class conservatives, came to the same conclusion. “There’s a lot of underlying [economic] anxiety,” he told me. “People are working harder and not getting ahead. There is a disconnect between the insider establishment in the country–and in my party–and the middle class about this. There’s a greater divide between the top and bottom than ever before. And worse, people on the bottom are not sure they can get out of the bottom. That’s a recipe for real trouble. That’s the stuff out of which revolutions are born.”

Huckabee is likely to suffer for refusing to demagogue immigration. He is already in trouble for offering college scholarships to deserving children of illegal immigrants in Arkansas. “We never should grind our heel in the face of a child,” he has said. But if a nativist revolt is brewing, his fellow Republicans are handing out the pitchforks. Peripheral candidates like Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter set the slime flowing in the presidential campaign. The theme was soon picked up by Mitt Romney, who seems incapable of finding an issue where integrity trumps expediency. Romney has made illegal immigration the target of recent campaign ads. He has used the issue as a cudgel against Rudy Giuliani (a passionately pro-immigrant mayor trying to sound like a tough guy now), even though Romney reportedly employed illegal workers to do his gardening and didn’t seem concerned about the issue when he was Governor of Massachusetts–until he decided to run for President.

Earlier in the year, I asked Romney if he thought illegal immigration was a net plus for the economy. He said, “I’m not sure.” To which one can only say, Ha ha ha. A recent study of Arkansas, conducted by the nonpartisan Urban Institute, estimated that immigrants there pay more in Social Security and sales taxes than they cost in social services like health care and education. That doesn’t begin to take into account the economic impact of the hard work and entrepreneurial energy that illegal immigrants bring to the society. To be sure, there is a need for greater border security in a time of terrorism. But any candidate who claims to be able to shut down the border simply isn’t telling the truth. And any candidate who would run for the presidency by cynically exploiting fears born of economic anxiety, ignorance or plain old “European American” racism doesn’t deserve to be elected.

Correction: I was wrong to write last week that the House Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would require a court approval of individual foreign surveillance targets. The bill does not explicitly say that. Republicans believe it can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don’t. To read the disputed section of the bill, go to time.com/fisa

time.com/swampland

Ron Paul’s worked up about U.S. sovereignty.

By Gretel C. Kovach

NEWSWEEK

Updated: 3:37 PM ET Dec 1, 2007

Ron Paul wants you to be scared. There’s a conspiracy in the land—what he calls a “conspiracy of ideas”—to give up America’s sovereignty. It’s a shadowy scheme that begins with the NAFTA “superhighway,” a road as wide as several football fields that will link Mexico, the United States and Canada. “They don’t talk about it and they might not admit it,” Paul said at the CNN-YouTube presidential debate last week. He didn’t say exactly who “they” are, but perhaps one can guess. “They’re planning on [taking] millions of acres … by eminent domain,” warned the prickly libertarian. But elected government officials aren’t acting alone. There’s “an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments” pushing the idea, Paul wrote in October 2006. “The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union—complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union.”

Only it’s not true. The main purveyor of this broad conspiracy theory is Jerome Corsi, coauthor of “Unfit for Command,” the book that helped Swift Boat John Kerry’s presidential ambitions. His latest offering is “The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada,” which became a best seller on The New York Times’s business list this summer. Corsi plays on growing nationalist fears. He sees a scenario in which a North American Union is born and shares a currency, the “amero.” Even some right-wing standard-bearers regard the fears as over-blown. Jed Babbin, editor of the conservative newspaper Human Events, says: “I guess there are people who believe in [the plan for a North American Union]. But there are people who believe in Bigfoot.” “The evidence is out there,” says Corsi.

Like all good conspiracies, the NAFTA superhighway is a strange stew of fact and fiction, fired by paranoia. There is a big road planned. It’s called the Trans-Texas Corridor. The idea was unveiled in 2002 by GOP Gov. Rick Perry. And it’s true the corridor was originally designed to be 1,200 feet wide, including a highway for vehicles, railway lines, petroleum pipes, electricity and water lines and broadband fiber optics. (It’s since been scaled back slightly.) A considerable swath of Texas land, perhaps as much as a half-million acres, will be taken by eminent domain.

It’s also true that more than one organization wants to improve commerce between North American countries. The “unholy alliance” Paul speaks of is the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). It was launched in 2005 by the heads of state of the United States, Mexico and Canada. Part of the SPP mandate is to increase security cooperation against terror threats. It also aims to improve trade. But much of the home page of the SPP Web site is devoted to “Myth vs. Fact.” It dispels tales about a “secret plan” to build a superhighway.

Texas officials are still trying to convince locals their $180 billion idea was not hatched to undermine American sovereignty. Controversy stalled the project for several years, but now construction could begin in 2009. Perry has had to explain repeatedly that no federal funds will be used to build the project, and that Texas turned to private firms to finance the road because they could build it quickly without taxpayer money. (The contractor, Cintra-Zachry, is a Spanish-Texan consortium that expects to earn a profit by collecting tolls. Critics, even those who don’t see a conspiracy, say the state is mortgaging its infrastructure to foreign investors.) Texas Transportation Commissioner Ric Williamson says he’s startled by superhighway fears. He tells NEWSWEEK he had never heard of a North American Union until people started badgering him about it. “They say, ‘Is this part of the NAU and the amero?’ … And I say, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ ”

National politicians are facing similar questions. According to press reports, campaign aides have said that anxieties about the supposed scheme are the second most popular topic Mitt Romney is asked about in New Hampshire. Rudy Giuliani, whose law firm represents Cintra, has also taken questions about it. Ordinary people may be taking the conspiracy seriously because mainstream news organizations—and countless blogs—have. CNN newscaster Lou Dobbs, a trade protectionist, has featured the superhighway on his show as if it were a fact.

Corsi is only too happy to stir things up. When the Eagle Forum, a conservative association, presented him with an award in September for “courage and leadership in protecting America’s sovereignty,” Corsi offered a warning: President Bush’s supposed determination to force North American integration, he told the audience, could cost the GOP the 2008 presidential election. Corsi may have a conspiratorial bent. But he sure knows how to spin stories that shake up an election—and at least one candidate seems happy to help him.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/73372

David Sarasohn
Portland Oregonian
December 5, 2007

Every evening, CNN gives an hour to Lou Dobbs, who explains that international trade and illegal immigrants are endangering national security, destroying the middle class and bringing back leprosy.

Last Wednesday on CNN, Dobbs’ hour was followed by two hours of Republicans running for president.

And for a while, you couldn’t tell where Dobbs stopped and the debate started.

Things began with a rousing alley fight between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani over who was weaker on illegal immigrants. Romney took the first question on the subject and wheeled on Giuliani, charging him with running New York as a “sanctuary city.”

Giuliani responded by saying Romney had a “sanctuary mansion,” because the gardening company working at his house employed two illegal immigrants. (The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Romney had fired the company.) The New Yorker told Romney, “You have a special immigration problem that nobody else has, because you were employing illegal immigrants.”

Getting nasty with Giuliani, Romney gives away too much weight. Romney’s willing to do it – he is, it seems, willing to do just about anything – but he takes no particular joy in the attack; he’d rather beam and talk about the wonderfulness of family.

Giuliani, on the other hand, delights in the idea, with a New York politician’s fondness for calling opponents either dangerous or deranged. As a result, the GOP presidential debate began with an argument over what you should do if someone mowing your lawn seems to have an accent.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., running for president on a single-issue anti-immigrant platform – he wants to stop legal as well as illegal immigration – stood quivering with excitement, exulting, “All I’ve heard is people trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo.”

Romney then attacked former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, breathing down Romney’s neck in Iowa, for proposing to let illegal immigrants graduating from Arkansas high schools qualify for state college merit scholarships. Huckabee responded firmly, “In all due respect, we’re a better country than to punish children for what their parents did.”

The former Massachusetts governor declared incredulously, “It reminds me of what it’s like talking to liberals in Massachusetts” – which also reminded people that five years ago, he was one.

As noted, Romney’s willing to get nasty; he’s just not very good at it. When he can’t figure out what the audience wants to hear, he gets fuddled. Confronted by an earlier quote from him looking forward to a time that gays could serve in the armed forces, all he could think to say was, “This isn’t that time.” Asked what he’d do to preserve Social Security, he went off on “tough new competition from Asia,” “overuse of oil” and “Hillary Clinton.”

Huckabee probably gained most from the debate, with calmness and a supply of prepared zingers. He was also better at avoiding unwanted questions; asked whether Jesus would support capital punishment, Huckabee explained that Jesus was too smart ever to run for public office.

He was also better positioned for a black questioner who asked why minorities didn’t vote Republican. The question started with Giuliani, who pronounced, “We probably haven’t done a good enough job as a party in pointing out that our solutions, our philosophy, is really the philosophy that would be the most attractive to the overwhelming majority of people in the African-American and Hispanic community.”

One thing that would help, of course, would be if Hispanics hadn’t seen the beginning of the debate.

Still, it was a ringing statement from someone who, at one point during his time as mayor of New York, enjoyed the approval of 8 percent of African-Americans in New York.

The single number is not a misprint.

Huckabee was able to note that running for re-election as governor of Arkansas, he’d won 48 percent of the African-American vote.

If just about any other Republican had said that, it would be a misprint.

Huckabee has his own problems. He goes off into Great Pumpkin-like calls for abolishing the income tax. Awkwardly for a president overseeing billions in federal medical and scientific research, he doesn’t believe in evolution.

Then again, if you’d participated in multiple Republican presidential debates, you might not, either.

By Michael D. Shear and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 29, 2007; A01

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Nov. 28 — The Republican candidates for president engaged in a two-hour free-for-all Wednesday night, repeatedly confronting one another directly even as they fielded video questions submitted by Internet users in the most spirited debate of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani immediately set the tone for the combative event, using the first question to continue a weeks-long feud they have waged on the campaign trail. Each accused the other of ignoring laws against illegal immigration and distorting one another’s record on the issue.

Giuliani accused Romney of having a “sanctuary mansion” by employing illegal immigrants as lawn workers and of being “holier than thou” on the issue. Romney accused Giuliani of ignoring the laws and of welcoming illegal immigrants to New York. “That’s the wrong attitude,” Romney charged in a lengthy, heated exchange.

The clash between the two was only the start of what resembled a raucous family argument, stoked by sharp questions that touched on the most contentious issues in the Republican contest: immigration policy, abortion, gun control, same-sex marriage, race and the Confederate flag.

The exchanges at the debate, sponsored by CNN and YouTube, underscored the concerns of all the leading candidates as they jockey for advantage with five weeks remaining until the Iowa caucuses, with no contender gaining a clear edge in the battle for the GOP nomination. It also provided a public forum for the arguments that the candidates have been waging through news releases and stump speeches.

Giuliani got the opening question in the form of a video submitted by a New Yorker, who challenged him for running, as mayor, a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants.

“The reality is, New York was not a sanctuary city,” Giuliani responded, noting areas of exception to enforcing the laws on his watch that he said were necessary to maintain the health and safety of city residents.

Giuliani, the GOP front-runner in national polling, was put on the defensive throughout the night as he became the target of his rivals and of several of the questioners. He was booed by some in the audience when he said the government has a right to impose reasonable regulations on gun ownership.

Romney, who leads in surveys testing New Hampshire and Iowa, appeared cautious and unsure in his answers to several tough questions. He struggled to deal with the question whether he still “looked forward to the day” when gays could serve openly in the military. He refused to answer, saying only that “this isn’t that time.”

But the clash over immigration between Giuliani and Romney quickly engulfed the other candidates. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) defended his support of legislation that many Republicans say amounts to amnesty.

Former senator Fred D. Thompson accused Romney of flip-flopping on immigration and said Giuliani had gone to court seeking to overturn a bill designed to ban sanctuary cities. “I helped pass a bill outlawing sanctuary cities,” Thompson said. “The mayor went to court to overturn it. So, if it wasn’t a sanctuary city, I’d call that a frivolous lawsuit.”

Romney and Huckabee, who are in an increasingly tight battle in Iowa, clashed over whether children of illegal immigrants should receive college scholarships. Romney said Huckabee was wrong to support such a measure in Arkansas, to which Huckabee replied: “In all due respect, we are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did.”

McCain, whose campaign was damaged by his support for comprehensive immigration legislation, promised along with others that, as president, he would secure the borders, but he called on his rivals to tone down their rhetoric on the hot-button issue. If he becomes president, he said, “We won’t have all this other rhetoric that unfortunately contributes nothing to the national dialogue.”

Tancredo, the most outspoken opponent of illegal immigration in the Republican field, stood quietly through most of the early minutes. “All I’ve heard is people trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo,” he said.

There were moments of levity, often provided by Huckabee, whose best line of the night was in answer to a question about what Jesus would do about the death penalty.

“Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office,” Huckabee said, prompting laughter on the stage and in the audience.

But the debate repeatedly turned serious and confrontational. One of the toughest exchanges came over torture, pitting McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and Romney.

A questioner asked whether any of the candidates disagreed with McCain’s contention that the practice of waterboarding constitutes torture. Romney, asked to answer first, hedged, saying that as a candidate for president, he would not specify which techniques he considers torture.

McCain could barely conceal his contempt, saying he was “astonished” that Romney would think the practice might not be torture. When Romney persisted that he would not talk specifics on the issue, McCain ripped him a second time, saying that would mean “you would have to advocate that we withdraw from the Geneva Conventions.”

Arguing that this is a defining issue for the country, McCain concluded by saying, “We should be able, if we want to be commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, to take a definite and positive position on, and that is, we will never allow torture to take place in the United States of America.

Later, McCain and Paul clashed over Iraq and foreign policy, with McCain accusing the congressman of the kind of isolationism that allowed Adolf Hitler to come to power in the 1930s.

Giuliani got a question about a report Wednesday on Politico.com about security expenses for mayoral trips to the Hamptons that were allocated to a number of obscure city agencies.

Giuliani denied any wrongdoing, saying New York mayors are provided round-the-clock security. He said he knew nothing about the expensing: “They were handled, as far as I know, perfectly appropriately.”

Democrats participated in a YouTube debate in July, but a number of GOP candidates balked at joining a similar forum scheduled for September. They criticized the Democratic debate as undignified, deriding one question presented by a snowman.

Eventually, after criticism from inside the party and out, they relented, and the debate was rescheduled for Wednesday night. The format was considerably more freewheeling and unpredictable than most previous debates and, as with the Democrats, candidates competed with the creativity of questioners from all over the country who had submitted short videos on a wide range of topics.

Almost 5,000 videos were submitted, and the debate sponsors picked 34 for candidates to respond to during the two-hour session. But moderator Anderson Cooper of CNN had plenty of leeway to probe with follow-up questions .

The debate, which was held at the Mahaffey Theater, included all eight active candidates for the Republican nomination. Rep. Duncan Hunter (Calif.) also participated in the event.

The Republican debate came at a moment when the nomination battle has turned sharply negative, particularly between Giuliani and Romney. Giuliani leads most national polls of Republicans, while Romney leads in the two states with the earliest contests, Iowa and New Hampshire — although Huckabee is now in a statistical dead heat with Romney in Iowa.

When asked whether he would accept the support of the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative gay organization, Huckabee joked, “You know, in my position in this entire election, I need the support of anybody and everybody I can get.”

When the topic turned to whether the next president should commit the nation to putting a person on Mars, he ended his answer by saying, “If we do, I’ve got a few suggestions, and maybe Hillary [Clinton] could be on the first rocket to Mars.”

That quip brought a rebuke from Tancredo, who told Huckabee that his willingness to spend more on space was at the root of the problem of out-of-control spending in Washington. “We can’t afford some things, and by the way, going to Mars is one of them.”

Paul drew a question about whether he might take his grass-roots support and turn it into an independent campaign for the White House next year. Denying any intention to do so, Paul said he is largely a vehicle for widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo.

“This country is in a revolution,” he said. “They’re sick and tired of what they’re getting. And I happen to be lucky enough to be part of it.”

November 15, 2007

As the Democratic presidential race finally gets down to brass tacks, two issues are becoming paramount. But only one of them is clearly on the table.

That is the issue of illegal immigration. A very smart Democrat, a veteran of the Clinton administration, told me he expects it to be a key part of any Republican campaign and is worried about his own party’s ability to respond.

I think he has good reason. The failure of the Democratic Congress, like its Republican predecessor, to enact comprehensive immigration reform, including improved border security, has left individual states and local communities struggling with the problem. Some are showing a high degree of tolerance and flexibility. Others are being more punitive. But all of them are running into controversy.

I noticed a new Siena College Research Institute poll of registered voters in New York. It found heavy opposition to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to permit undocumented aliens to obtain driver’s licenses; nearly two-thirds opposed the latest version.

Moreover, the issue is part of a weakening of support for Spitzer, who now has a 2-to-1 negative job rating and, for the first time, an overall unfavorable image. Asked if they are inclined to support him for re-election in 2010, only 25 percent say yes, while 49 percent say they would prefer an anonymous “someone else.” It was just last year that Spitzer was elected in a landslide. On Wednesday, Spitzer announced that he was abandoning the driver’s license idea.

That is New York, home state of both Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani. And the driver’s license question is the one that tripped up Sen. Clinton when she was asked about it at the Philadelphia debate and gave answers that were indecisive – and nearly indecipherable.

The other candidates had more time to compose an answer, so were spared the embarrassment. It was the pummeling she received from Barack Obama and John Edwards during and after that debate (and from moderator Tim Russert) that brought her husband, former President Bill Clinton, into the campaign, with the charge, as he put it, that “those boys have been getting tough on her lately.”

The former president’s intervention – volunteered during a campaign appearance on her behalf in South Carolina – raised the second, and largely unspoken, issue identified by my friend from the Clinton administration: the two-headed campaign and the prospect of a dual presidency.

In his view, which I share, this is a prospect that will test the tolerance of the American people far more severely than the possibility of the first woman president – or, for that mater, the first black president.

As my friend says, “there is nothing in American constitutional or political theory to account for the role of a former president, still energetic and active and full of ideas, occupying the White House with the current president.”

No precedent exists for such an arrangement and no ground rules have been – or likely can be – written. When Bill Clinton was president, the large policy enterprise that was entrusted to the first lady – health care reform – crashed in ruins.

The causes were complex, and some of the burden falls on other people – Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the interest groups and, yes, the press. But as one who reported and wrote in excessive detail and length about that whole enterprise, I can also tell you that the awkwardness of having an unelected but uniquely influential partner of the president in charge affected every step of the process, from the gestation of the plan to its final demise. She was never again asked to take on such a project.

And this was simply the confusion sown by having the first lady in charge. Put the former president into the picture – however “sanitized” or insulated his role is supposed to be – and the dimensions of the problem loom even larger.

No one who has read or studied the large literature of memoirs and biographies of the Clintons and their circle can doubt the intimacy and the mutual dependency of their political and personal partnership.

No one can reasonably expect that partnership to end, should she be elected president. But the country must decide whether it is comfortable with such a sharing of the power and authority of the highest office in the land.

It is a difficult question for any of the Democratic rivals to raise.

But it lingers, even if unasked.

Kathleen Parker
Orlando Sentinel
November 7, 2007

When Hillary Clinton fumbled a recent debate question about New York’s plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, she helped clarify at least one issue that keeps getting muddied: Illegal immigrants are illegal.

Why, then, are we granting them driver’s licenses?

Thus far, eight states allow illegal immigrants to receive licenses or permits (and 10 states offer in-state tuition) – all in the spirit of making America a better place.

But we don’t want to encourage immigrants to come here illegally.

Gotcha.

The illegal immigrant problem is huge, obviously, and there’s no single solution. But there is one word that would get the ball rolling in the right direction and win a lot of voters’ hearts: disincentivize. Stop making it so attractive to slip through, over and under the border.

As long as we offer jobs, medical treatment, driver’s licenses and in-state tuition to those who come here illegally, why would any right-thinking, would-be immigrant take a number and wait his turn? Why not just throw in the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and free tequila while we’re at it?

Arguments favoring services and privileges for illegal immigrants always point to the broader benefits to society. Healthy immigrants mean a healthier America; an educated populace means fewer jobless dependents; legal drivers are more responsible because, allegedly, they’ll also buy insurance and stick around when they have an accident.

The latter seems unconvincing given that illegal immigrants, by definition, tend not to think legally. In any case, by the same logic we might also say that amnesty is good for the country because then everyone would be legal. Rather than fix something, we simply accommodate circumstances. As in: Kids are having sex anyway, so we’ll just give them condoms.

Advocates for licensing also argue that illegal immigrants can’t get jobs without a driver’s license. Do I hear bingo? Isn’t that the point?

On the one hand, we argue that employers should be penalized for hiring illegal immigrants; on the other, we insist that the immigrants need driver’s licenses because employers demand them. I’m beginning to see how Clinton got so tangled up. You cannot argue rationally in defense of the irrational.

The Monday morning quarterback is, of course, a brilliant seer, and the stands are filled with hindsight prophets this week. Here’s one more shoulda for the pile-on. When NBC’s Tim Russert asked why she thought New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses made sense, Clinton should have simply said:

“It makes sense for states to seek solutions given the federal government’s failure to reform immigration, but I’m not 100 percent satisfied with the licensing plan. Unfortunately, Tim, I’ll need more than 30 seconds to outline my concerns.”

Or something to that effect. Instead, Clinton called for immigration reform. It’s easy to say we need reform. Everybody agrees with that. It’s much harder to say we need to stop rewarding “illegal.”

Clinton even refused to use the term “illegal immigrant,” preferring the blander “undocumented worker,” as though people who cross our border illegally are just like the rest of us except for those darned documents.

They may be nice, hard-working people, but they’re not like other immigrants who, having come here legally, have demonstrated a commitment to the rule of law and fairness.

Surely, we can love our neighbors and be a pro-immigrant nation without granting de facto citizenship to illegal immigrants through a menu of rights and privileges. As is, all that’s missing is the oath – and any meaning attached to it.

Beyond principle, there are practical reasons for denying licenses to illegal immigrants. As some reformers have pointed out, the driver’s license is more than a permit to drive. It’s a nationally recognized ID that implies citizenship, and is the most coveted “breeder document” of terrorists because it allows them access to all the other things they need to blend in – jobs, housing, bank accounts – as well as access to commercial airplanes and rental cars.

Many states still don’t verify applicants’ identities. In May 2001, when Tennessee dropped its requirement that applicants supply a Social Security number, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants applied for licenses, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

There may be no way to solve every aspect of the immigration problem. Certainly, no serious person thinks we can round up 12 million people and deport them. But it would be refreshing if we began to take seriously what it means to be a citizen and stop making it so attractive to be a lawbreaker.

That would make sense.

Michael Barone
U.S. News & World Report
November 6, 2007

October 2007 may turn out to be the month that immigration became a key issue in presidential politics. It hasn’t been, at least in my lifetime.

The Immigration Act of 1965, which turned out to open up America to mass immigration after four decades of restrictive laws, wasn’t one of the Great Society issues Lyndon Johnson emphasized in 1964. The Immigration Act of 1986, which legalized millions of illegal immigrants but whose border and workplace provisions have never been effectively enforced, was a bipartisan measure unmentioned in the debates between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.

There was no perceptible difference on immigration between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000. Both favored a comprehensive bill with legalization and guest-worker provisions. John Kerry in 2006 and 2007 voted for immigration bills along the lines supported by Bush.

Now, things look different. In the Democratic debate on Oct. 30, Tim Russert demanded to know whether Hillary Clinton supported New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s policy of issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. The forthright answer: yes and no. A clarifying statement by the Clinton campaign later in the week did not much clarify things: a hedged yes. It was one of several issues on which Clinton seemed to take calculating and ambiguous nonpositions. But it is one that may have major reverberations in the presidential campaign – and in congressional races, as well.

The reason is that the Democrats – and Bush – are out of line with public opinion on the issue. That became clear as the Senate debated a comprehensive immigration bill in May and June. Most Republicans and many Democrats, in the Senate and among the public, turned against the bill. Supporters of the bill tended to ascribe that to something like racism: They just don’t like having so many Mexicans around.

But if you listened to the opponents, you heard something else. They want the current law to be enforced. It bothers them that we have something like 12 million illegal immigrants in our country. It bothers them that most of the southern border is unfenced and unpatrolled. It bothers them that illegal immigrants routinely use forged documents to get jobs – or are given jobs with no documents at all.

You don’t have to be a racist to be bothered by such things. You just have to be a citizen who thinks that massive failure to enforce the law is corrosive to society.

That was apparent to me as I listened to a focus group of Republican voters in suburban Richmond, Va., conducted by Peter Hart for the Annenberg School of Communications. One voter after another complained that the immigration laws were not being enforced. None of them made any derogatory remarks about Latino immigrants – two said they admired how hard they work. They don’t want to see Latinos banished from this country. They want the immigrants here to be here legally.

Which leaves Democratic politicians and political candidates out on a pretty flimsy limb. Most of them reflexively back a comprehensive bill, and some of them (like Bush and a number of Republicans backing such a bill) have dismissed opponents as racists.

Most Democrats have also been backing bills extending various benefits to illegal immigrants, like the Dream Act for college education for illegals brought over as children. There are appealing arguments for such bills. But most voters reject them. And most voters certainly reject driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. That was one of the issues that led to the recall of Gov. Gray Davis in California in 2003.

The Republican presidential candidates have taken note. Only John McCain, a longtime backer of a comprehensive bill, stands apart, and he concedes that voters are demanding tougher enforcement. In the special congressional election in Massachusetts on Oct. 5, the Republican was able to hold the Democrat to 51 percent by stressing immigration as one of his two top issues.

Other Republicans are likely to echo that theme next fall. And the Democratic presidential nominee (unless Chris Dodd gets the nod) is going to have to explain why she or he believes it’s a good idea to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses.

The last several Democratic nominees could have said that they’re just taking the same position as their Republican opponent. The 2008 nominee won’t be able to say the same of hers or his (unless McCain gets the nod).

“The centrality of illegal immigration to the current discontent about the direction of the country may be taking us back again to a welfare moment,” write the shrewd Democratic strategists James Carville and Stanley Greenberg. Yup.

Philadelphia Inquirer
November 1, 2007

PHILADELPHIA – On the day after the Democratic debate here, the tempest generated by Hillary Rodham Clinton’s handling of the issue of driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants refused to go away.

Democratic and Republican presidential candidates alike joined in criticizing her Wednesday.

And the Clinton campaign, hoping the episode will not become a metaphor for evasiveness, clarified her position on the issue and put out a Web video mocking her opponents for “piling on.”

In the debate, Clinton struggled with a question about whether she supported a proposal by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer to allow illegal immigrants to get licenses.

At first, she appeared to endorse the idea, saying she understood why Spitzer wanted to issue licenses. Then, she seemed to reject it, saying she “didn’t think this was the best thing for any governor to do.”

Her Democratic rivals seized upon her performance, hoping to use it as confirmation of their claim that she has avoided specific positions.

“I think last night’s debate really exposed this fault line,” Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said on Wednesday. Wednesday, the Clinton campaign issued a statement confirming that she does, in fact, support the Spitzer plan.

Republicans joined in the attack on the Democratic front-runner, slamming her both for waffling and her support for an idea that the electorate does not welcome.

According to a CNN/USA Today survey taken in mid-October, Americans oppose licenses for illegal immigrants by a 3-1 ratio. Democrats oppose it by almost 2-1.

The candidates themselves are divided on the issue, a fact obscured by all of the attention paid to Clinton’s back-and-forth during the debate.

Obama, after saying that he couldn’t “tell whether she was for it or against it,” supported licenses for illegals.

In a show of hands during the debate, three other candidates appeared to support it: Edwards, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, of Ohio.

Senators Christopher Dodd, of Connecticut, and Joseph Biden, of Delaware, said they opposed the proposal.

By JULIA PRESTON

Patrick Henry and Francis Scott Key are out, but Susan B. Anthony and Nancy Pelosi are in. The White House was cut, but New York and Sept. 11 made the list. Federal immigration authorities yesterday unveiled 100 new questions immigrants will have to study to pass a civics test to become naturalized American citizens. The redesign of the test, the first since it was created in 1986 as a standardized examination, follows years of criticism in which conservatives said the test was too easy and immigrant advocates said it was too hard. The new questions did little to quell that debate among many immigrant groups, who complained that the citizenship test would become even more daunting. Conservatives seemed to be more satisfied. Bush administration officials said the new test was part of their effort to move forward on the hotly disputed issue of immigration by focusing on the assimilation of legal immigrants who have played by the rules, leaving aside the situation of some 12 million illegal immigrants here. Several historians said the new questions successfully incorporated more ideas about the workings of American democracy and better touched upon the diversity of the groups — including women, American Indians and African-Americans — who have influenced the country’s history. Would-be citizens no longer have to know who said, “Give me liberty or give me death,” or who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But they do have to know what Susan B. Anthony did and who the speaker of the House of Representatives is. Alfonso Aguilar, a senior official at Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that designs and administers the test, said it was not intended to be punitive. “We don’t seek to fail anyone,” said Mr. Aguilar, an architect of the test. Immigration officials said they sought to move away from civics trivia to emphasize basic concepts about the structure of government and American history and geography. In contrast to the old test, which some immigrants could pass without any study, the officials said the new one is intended to force even highly educated applicants to do reviewing. “This test genuinely talks about what makes an American citizen,” said Emilio Gonzalez, the director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, speaking at a news conference in Washington. The $6.5 million redesign was shaped over six years of discussions with historians, immigrant organizations and liberal and conservative research groups. The questions were submitted to four months of pilot testing this year with more than 6,000 immigrants who were applying for naturalization. The agency will begin to use the revised test on Oct. 1, 2008, leaving a year for aspiring citizens to prepare and for community groups to adjust their study classes. The overall format has not changed. Legal immigrants who are eligible to become citizens must pass the civics exam as well as a test of English proficiency in reading and writing. In a one-on-one oral examination, an immigration officer asks the applicant 10 questions of varying degrees of difficulty selected from the list of 100. To pass, the applicant must answer 6 of those 10 questions correctly. The questions released yesterday will remain public along with their answers. Immigrants are eligible to become citizens if they have been legal permanent residents for at least five years (or three years if they are married to a citizen) and have “good moral character” and no criminal record. In the pilot runs of the revised test, Mr. Aguilar said, the pass rates improved over the current tests, with 92 percent of participants passing on the first try, as opposed to 84 percent now. At least 15 questions were eliminated as a result of the pilot because they proved too difficult. For example, a question about the minimum wage was dropped because test takers were confused between federal and state rates, Mr. Aguilar said. In the new test, the pilgrims have been replaced by “colonists,” and they are the subject of fewer questions, while slavery and the civil rights movement are the subject of more. A question was added asking what “major event” happened on Sept. 11, 2001. The new test drops questions about the 49th and 50th states, but adds one about the political affiliation of the president. There are no questions about the White House. Instead, one question asks where the Statue of Liberty is. In a statement today, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, one of the groups consulted in shaping the new test, denounced it as “the final brick in the second wall.” The group said the test included “more abstract and irrelevant questions” that tended to stump hard-working immigrants who had little time to study. But several historians said the test appeared to be fair. “People who take this seriously will have a good chance of passing,” said Gary Gerstle, a professor of American history at Vanderbilt University. “Indeed, their knowledge of American history may even exceed the knowledge of millions of American-born citizens.” John Fonte, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, called the new test “a definite improvement.” But he said it should have included questions about the meaning of the oath of allegiance that new citizens swear. “I would like to see an even more vigorous emphasis on Americanization,” he said. About 55 percent of the applicants who participated in the pilot test were from Latin American countries. Some Latino groups noted yesterday that no question on the new test refers to Latinos. Mr. Aguilar said that the test was not intended to be a comprehensive review, but rather to include “landmark moments of American history that apply to every single citizen.” Naturalizations have surged in recent years, to 702,589 last year from 537,151 in 2004, according to official figures. In July the fees to become a citizen increased sharply, to $675 from $405.