Jun 15 2006
More Polling On Immigration
And more proof that the far right is far off on the immigration topic:
By 50%-33%, the survey shows, Americans support the views expressed by President Bush and also by businesses, Hispanics and Democratic leaders: that steps to strengthen border security should be combined with a guest-worker program for prospective immigrants and those who have been in the U.S. for at least two years. Yet a 44% plurality of conservatives back an agenda combining border security and deportation of illegal immigrants — making it difficult for Republican politicians to embrace the majority opinion.
‘Conservatives’ make up less than 40% of the US population. But let’s give them a boost and call it 40%. That computes to 17% of the US population want the hardline approach. And given the way math works, the larger the pool you assume to be conservative the number just don’t get much better. So if 50% of this country is assumed conservative then the 17% only jumps to 22%.
This confirms the 80-20% problem the hardliners face. Making illegal immigration a felony with deportation the punishment is opposed by 80% of the country. So, are we going to let this problem fester because the 20% cannot get all they want? That’s up to the 20%. What they need to understand is they may be standing by themselves next fall when the conservative coalition fractures over their intractibility. There is a way out of this – it is not too late to rejoin forces and defeat the real amnesty plans of the Democrats.
And a word of warning to both parties:
One early source of solace for the president’s party is that such a differential didn’t fuel outsize Democratic turnout in last week’s special House election in California won by Republican Brian Bilbray. In part, that may be because neither of America’s main political parties currently enjoys a good reputation. While the Republican Party is viewed negatively by 47%-34%, so is the Democratic Party by 39%-35%.
An America Kadima is not far fetched. We do not need a third party. We just need to all become unaligned independents and start voting who we find the least objectionable. That will wake some people up.
I suggest the Republicans come up with a compromise as tough as they can get it now, because if they lose their majority these numbers make it plain that they will not be in better shape to do this later.
In a democracy compromise is not a dirty word.
Rassmusen also has a poll out (somewhat dated-May 17) which provides some additional data. The RNC would be well served if someone would conduct one which deals more specifically with the strengths and weaknesses of both bills.
What am I saying? We all need the data!
Terry: right on!
I would love to see the data on the Poll in question, but sadly there is no link. How were the questions asked; for that matter, what were the questions?
These blind poll results leave me unimpressed. Remember Zogby’s “I can get the response I want by asking the right questions” Interview? was only a couple of weeks ago.
Color me skeptical.
Well it makes a difference how the questions are asked for one thing and what kind of alternatives are given.
For instance imagine this:
I ask you do you support a guest worker program for certain jobs such as agricultural work?
Or this:
Some people say that guest worker programs only bring in additional illegal aliens, considering this do you support a guest worker program or increased border security?
push polling.
Now, in which poll will there be a low support for guest workers? Even Rasmussen has been known to do this kind of thing.
Gee, let’s see; a WSJ/NBC poll.
So who are we taking in here? WSJ readers – business interests. Sure, business want amnesty and a constant flow of low paid wage earners. And don’t be fooled by the WSJ. Having spent ten years of my life working for WSJ/Dow Jones I can tell you that many, MANY are liberals, especially the reporters.
Now we come to NBC. Want to guess what side of the aisle the bulk of their views are on? Come on, take a guess.
while i personally don’t think either plans are workable–especially the senate’s convoluted three step samba dance. the repub house bill is being falsely smeared with the felon/deportation smear. while there are a few who support that, the majority don’t. they tried to remove the felon status before a vote but they were prevented by the dems. what they do support is an end to the 30 years of continued BS about border enforcement. they want a fence–that is the central focus of the bill. this link shows exactly in a picture where the 854 miles would go.
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/68466.htm
where the house members are delusional is they think that the newly created unemployed are going to leave voluntarily. talk about a disconnect! while there are deportation supporters there are an equal number of dems that want open borders. each, to me, is repugnant.
with some luck we will get a fence first and then everybody here will get a 10 year green card. ten years of good behavior and then citizenship–the standard path. the whole bill written on a couple of pages not the 700 plus pile of debris the senate submitted. all the bad people deported. a fence keeps them out. now they just walk back in when the border patrol walks by.
Part of the problem is timing and party rote party stratagies. It is “primary season” and the general rule of thumb in election years is that party policy caters to the base during primary season and to the center when the general elections near. We will probably see a Republican caucus in a more compromising mood once all the state primaries are behind them and they head toward the general elections. At that point they will be playing to the center because every politician knows that the candidate that captures the center, wins the election.
As for felony charge for illegal residence, any party going that route is going to be in severe trouble in border states. That stuff might fly in Iowa but it doesn’t in Texas. Business leaders in Texas gave bush a rather stern talking to back at the start of the year concerning that issue. They want a policy that is as non-disruptive as possible to business. Police are worried to. They have invested a lot of effort over the years in getting populations to trust them and report crimes. Here in California it has been a major issue. The reason our police don’t check immigration status of people is so that people will not be afraid to come forward and report crime. If we make them subject to a felony conviction for testimony against a murderer, there is no way people will come forward. The recent raids by ICE are already causing problems in the rumors are flying around about random raids in neighborhoods and apartment complexes. They aren’t true but they are scaring people and only driving them deeper underground.
As for American Kadima, you are right, it isn’t far fetched. In 2002 in Texas, Independents outnumbered both Democrats and Republicans. It was something like 38% independent, 37% Republican, and 23% Democrats. The people who don’t identify with any party are the largest portion of the electorate there. They are mostly former Democrats and in a 50/50 tossup situation, flop Democrat. But the fact is that most of the people in Texas are declaring that neither party represents their interests.
The reason for this is that I believe, and this is strictly personal opinion, that MOST Americans are with the Democrats on many social issues but are with the Republicans on national security and fiscal issues. But they don’t want to sign up to the Republican ideals on social issues or the Democratic notion of national defense (or lack thereof). THAT is why Rudy consistantly outpolls everyone against him. Rudy is a pro-choice, pro-gay rights, Republican. He would have my vote in a minute if he would back off his pro-gun control stance. Rudy draws HUGE from independents and the crossover Democrats.
In 2008 it is going to be the candidate that wins Texas Independent voters that wins the presidential election. Also, Texas has a lot of seats in congress in addition to a lot of electoral votes. It is going to be the party in the house that appeals to Texas and California independents that stays in power. Right now, that isn’t the Republicans. Texans show no party loyalty. They voted Bush in 2004 but 57% of House seats went Democrat. If the Republicans keep shoothing themselves in the foot with the immigration issue, that number is going to rise.
But as I said initially, the Republican strategy should moderate after the primaries are done.
In a democracy compromise
That doesn’t apply to a Republic does it?
Crosspatch, what you know about Texas politics could be put in the eye of a gnat.
Here is what is real: Texas was a yellow dog state for years. But no longer. Since you cannot vote but one party in a primary in Texas, many people who are registered Democrats vote Republican for national offices. But if you live in a primarily Democrat county, like I do, you cannot vote in primaries for offices like country judges, sheriffs, city councilmen, county commissioners, mayor, etc.
This eliminates the possibility of getting the “Democrat” of your choice in a primary where there is no Republican running, as is often the case. Case in point: where I live we had three Democrats running for county sheriff, four running for mayor. No one wa running for those offices as Republicans. As a registered Republican you could not have voted in that primary.
And while there are still those who vote straight party tickets, the number of voters in Texas who do that are becoming less and less. Most Texans vote the issues and that means that the Democrat-Republican stats are often misleading.
Texas politics are usually a black/white issue with very little grey. And while there are those who claim to be “Independents”, there really are very few of them and most are located in Travis County.
Texans want immigration reform. And what they seem to want, including Tejanos, is the enforcement of the laws. They want the illegals to return to whereever they came from and apply to come here legally. No one in Texas is against LEGAL immigration but there is a lot of resentment toward ILLEGAL immigration.
The Republican base wants enforcement and historically the Republicans do best when they act on the opinion of their base. Bush has wandered from his base and that accounts for his low poll numbers.
By the way, Crosspatch, both Senators from Texas are Republicans and only 11 of 32 Congressmen from Texas are Democrats. Districts that are historically Democrat, like San Antonio, now have a Repubican Congressman, Henry Bonilla. Bonilla is against amensty but then I guess he is just a “racist” who is out of touch with what his consituency wants. Just another out of touch Tejano.
I had a big old post written up but it disappeared. Basically you confirmed everything I said in your post.
Here is a grapic that represents what I am talking about.
Here is some info from UTexas that I used to draw my conclusion.
Okay, I have lost TWO long posts trying to reply to this issue. I will try to post both links in separate posts because I believe it is one of the links that is causing me to lose the postings. AJ’s posting software deletes posts with URLs formatted in certain ways.
I based much of my conclusion on this document from UTexas.
Here is a graphic that illustrates the problem.
– it is not too late to rejoin forces and defeat the real amnesty plans of the Democrats.
And that is, hold your breath, Give them Amnesty First, don’t wait and let the Dems do it.
Just as many times as others persist that the Senate bill is a compromise and would only permit people a “path to citizenship”, I will be just as persistent that it is only an excuse for AMNESTY FOR ALL and is no compromise at all, only a total surrender.
What you post confirms what I posted Retire. And the more independents you have, the worse the problem gets because they aren’t getting to vote for the candidates that are put up for election BUT those parties need those votes.
Example. In the primary, the Democrats can ignore the Independents because the independents can’t vote in the primary so they get all way left in their campaigning. Then after the primary, they NEED the independents because they outnumber the Democrats, so they start to campaign to the center to attract the Independents. At that point they don’t care about their base because if they get the Independents, they win. Based be damned in a general election, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the independents. The ONLY thing that matters in the primary is the base.
CrossPatch, I looked at both the links and I think I see the problem. by the way, are you from the Deep South? I was born and raised in Georgia, and have since lived in almost every deep south state, currently residing in Louisiana. In all those states in 1952 there was basically only a Democrat party. But not the Dem party of today. That Dem party from 1952 would be called Republicans today. What happened was all Dems in south back then were conservatives. Repubs were basically libs. But when JFK got elected in 1960, that is when the change started Dems(conservatives)recognized that dem party was becoming liberal and then when LBJ got elected in ’64 they really started to panic, realizing that the Dem party was dropping the conservatives in favor of Labor unions and minorities(Liberals) and the welfare state, higher taxes, etc. (exception was JFK actually cut taxes) So the conservatives went to the Republican party(of Goldwater and Reagan) who were very conservative and represented what we believed in back then. So that chart can be very confusing, in ’52 Repubs were Repubs, Dems were Dems. beginning in 60-64 that is not true, Dems were converted Repubs, and vice versa. During the interim, as he said, if you were registered Repub you couldn’t vote in the local primaries, so lots of them had to be registered as Dems even tho they began to vote heavily Repub in National elections. Many local officials that were Dems say 10 years ago have actually changed parties because they saw more and more swithcing party registration mainly because the Dems have gotten so far out in left field that no self respecting Repub now would vote for any Dem even in local elections. So that chart is not exactly apples and oranges.
Crosspatch, you still do not seem to understand the mindset of Texans. While there are those who are registered to either the Democrats or the Republicans if you asked them what they are; Democrat, Republican or Independent, they will tell you they are Independent. And obviously, with the Republican party taking more and more seats it seems the Independents are voting Republican. I would warrant you could ask 100 Texas Republicans and they will tell you they vote “independent”. Perhaps the term means something different to us than it does the rest of the nation, i.e. the Independent Republic of Texas.
But then, since you are not a Texan I cannot expect you to understand what I am trying to tell you.
CrossPatch, but in fact most of those Independents are just fed up Democrats that left the party and just have not signed up as Repubs yet even tho the natural lean is that way and they in fact, vote Repub basically exclusively in national elections. That’s generally true throughout the south. Watch Louisaiana this year, see how many Dems lose out to Repubs in national election and I’ll wager this current Dem Gov is the last one, next one will be Repub.
Enforcement:
If you do not know that a republic is a from of representative democracy then you need to brush up on your civics.
From what I hear the bill, both of them are dead. After all this crap nothing will happen. What a farce.
The point is, the USA is a Republic not a democracy and if you didn’t know that you may be the one needing a civics lesson
“and To the Republic for which it stands”
How was your hunting this morning?