Democrats and the Illegal Immigrant Issue

Mickey Kaus visits this issue, which was, according to the drive-by-media a divisive issue only for Republicans. Well guess what?

What's changed? Well, President Bush--the main politician doing the GOP-splitting--is leaving the scene. The Republican electorate seems to have decisively turned against his illegal-immigrant semi-amnesty. Result: No more split! But the powerful GOP anti-legalization sentiment was obviously latent even in 2006. The MSM just chose not to notice.

Note: choosing not to notice is one of the Drive-bys favorite ways of slanting the news.

So what are the media and the Democrats to do?

Anti-legalization sentiment has also been manifestly latent among Democratic voters--including, but not limited to, unskilled workers whose wages have been suppressed by immigrant competition. What's odd, then, is that the Dems now aren't split. They're only terrified! The Dem presidential candidates who might appeal to anti-legalization opinion--and thereby split the party--all seem paralyzed by their desire not to offend Latinos.

And finally:

P.S.: Dionne eventually dismisses anti-illegal-immigration sentiment with a classic paleolib device:

Yet at a moment when the electorate is very angry, it's not surprising that some voters are channeling their discontent through the immigration issue. It's happened before in our history. [E.A.]

Of course, pre-Clinton Democrats also dismissed voter anger on the welfare issue as displaced discontent about economic stagnation (when they weren't dismissing it as plain old racism). Welfare recipients were "scapegoats," we were told. Then it turned out that the voters who were angry at welfare were angry at welfare. It's just possible, as Michael Barone suggests, that the voters who are angry at illegal immigration are angry at illegal immigration. ...