Why is Immigration soooo hot? What do the repukes gain?

[greenbriar]

I just don't get it why now and why so imortant?

[Minnesota Libra]

1. They're trying to find an issue to focus on besides idiot's numbers nt

[babylonsister]

2. Distraction from an inept prez and the fact that a war is

raging where Americans (and Iraqis) are dying, and they don't have a clue how to stop or fix either.

[misternormal]

3. Smooooooooke... Screeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnn !!!!!

[marmar]

7. Yup...

Just like same-sex marriage, Repugs get all righteously indignant about an issue, their corporate media cronies blow it up big for them, and the public en masse believes it's a huge issue. Why is it any more of a big issue today than it was April 5, 2005?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

4. A wedge.

Nothing more. Something that appeals to the lesser intellectual lights in the workforce, who cannot come to grips with the real reasons they cannot find a job.

For them, blaming someone whose last name ends in a vowel and has more dermal melanin than they do is just a whole lot more gratifying.

[racaulk]

5. They're trying to distract the sheeple...

...in an attempt to prevent them from further realizing how corrupt and incompentent *'s administration is. They're trying to play a game of smoke and mirrors, as usual, but I think this time they're going to lose. For the first time in a long time, I feel like the sheeple may be getting sick of drinking koolaid.

[blm]

6. Because any issue with an emotional response can be spun FOR the GOPs

who know full well they control most broadcast media and thus, the PERCEPTION that gets sold.

[Pathwalker]

8. It's a wedge issue to get their base fired up!

Otherwise, they're likely to stay home in november. If there's one thing Repukes in power understand, it's how to fire up their racist base. PERIOD.

[Sinti]

9. It's how they're playing it

They get to fire up their hater base -- damn illegals. They get to please their cheap-labor base with the guest worker program stuff. And they get to split us a bit on the issue, because some of us also blame the immigrants for the lack of labor protection that's a growing issue in this country. It's a win-win election year issue for them.

[mdmc]

10. hate always works to the GOP advantage

a good move on their part.

[porphyrian]

17. Not when it's the GOP being hated.

Just sayin'.

[High Plains]

11. I think the Republicans burned themselves with this issue.

It reveals huge, gaping fissures in the party between the Sensenbrenner "build a wall and lock 'em all up" nativist faction and the Bush-McCain cheap labor corporatist internationalist faction. The split parallels that around the Dubai Ports World deal.

The issue came to the fore because, after five years of Bush inaction on it after 911, the House hard-asses passed their bill. That inspired hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and their supporters to take to the streets. And here we are.

I wager no immigration bill gets through Congress this year.

[greenbriar]

12. so it is fueled by the hispanic threats of walkouts and

sick calls

[High Plains]

15. The fact that more than half a million marched in LA caught the

media's attention. And 200,000 + in Chicago. And tens of thousands in Atlanta, Denver, Kansas City, etc.

But the protests were inspired by the passage of the Sensenbrenner bill.

[Inland]

13. Bush wants to secure cheap labor that can't vote for after his term.

Bush is securing cheap labor that can't vote now by simply not enforceing the laws. But he won't be president forever, so he has to lock it in. He needs a provision that creates additonal laborers that can't vote (guest workers) while providing some sort of plan that will prevent any attempts to remove the current illegals.

It's the only thing that makes any sense. It doesn't make sense to say he did it to distract from his problems, particularly considering that it's just another, bigger problem that doesn't make others go away. No, he has a substantive, pro business, anti labor, long term approach to the matter.

[bemildred]

14. Wedge issue. Like race, abortion, etc.

Anything is better than talking about corruption, money, or the war.

[KAT119]

16. SLAVERY!!! n/t