Conyers: Taking Back the House...and the "Backlash" Myth

[babylonsister]

http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000426.htm


Taking Back the House...
....and the "Backlash" myth

This morning's Washington Post points out that Democratic voters are much more motivated than Republican voters to turn out this year. The primary motivator: displeasure with President Bush. In a similar vein, many voters who voted for Bush in 2004 are thinking about voting for Democrats. Their primary motivator: Bush.

I know many of you feel like you have been beating your heads up against a wall the last few years, wondering why other voters do not get it. Well, take a look around, it IS happening. Change never comes as quickly as you like, but it does come.

The New York Times has an amazingly strange article today. A few graphs:

"As lawmakers set aside the debate on immigration legislation for their spring recess, the protests by millions around the nation have escalated the policy debate into a much broader battle over the status of the country's 11 million illegal immigrants. While the marches have galvanized Hispanic voters, they have also energized those who support a crackdown on illegal immigration.

"The size and magnitude of the demonstrations had some kind of backfire effect," said John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who said he was working for 26 House members and seven senators seeking re-election. "The Republicans that are tough on immigration are doing well right now."

Mr. Hayworth said, "I see an incredible backlash." He has become one of the House's most vocal opponents of illegal immigration and is one of dozens of Republicans who have vowed to block the temporary-worker measure that stalled in the Senate."

What is amazing is that the article implies that this "backlash" against the recent demonstrations has come, without providing any real proof that is the case. It shouldn't be surprising that some of the most notoriously anti-immigrant Members of Congress get lots of calls from people who agree with them. But some poll data would have been nice.

Here's a few problems with the idea of a "backlash" favoring Republicans. First, they do not agree amongst themselves about what their immigration policy is. While many Members, like Mr. Tancredo, Mr. Hayworth and Mr. King, believe in the most restrictionist and, in my view, inhumane approaches, others -- like Senator McCain and President Bush and pushing the opposite way. Until the Republican party knows what its position on immigration is, it is hard to envision show it benefits from the issue.

The second problem is that polls consistently show that Americans favor the Democratic position on this issue: we need a comprehensive approach on immigration. We definitely need better border security and Republicans have consistently shortchanged it. We also definitely need more stringent employer sanctions to deter the exploitation of undocumented workers. But we also need a serious approach to deal with the fact that there are 11 million undocumented people living in the United States. Simply labeling them all criminals may feel good to some, but solves nothing.

Finally, and this is my most important point, and it has nothing to do with this issue specifically. It seems like whenever Democrats make gains on an issue, whenever there is an outpouring of support for a Democratic position, Republicans always try to push the narrative of a "backlash." Far too often, this narrative becomes the conventional wisdom among pundits and the Republicaans cleverly create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's where I come in and you come in and organizations like Media Matters come in. They simply shouldn't get away with claiming these things without offering some proof, and phone calls don't cut it.

Blogged by JC on 04.17.06 @ 09:06 AM ET <5 Comments>

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

1. "...take a look around, it IS happening..."

He's right. It's not happening as quickly as we'd like, I'm sure...and to see the 20 to 30 percent who, at any given moment "strongly approve" of what Bush is doing rips an incredulous "WTF?" from my GUT, but "take a look around, it IS happening."

:patriot:

[KurtNYC]

2. So..... according to a GOP pollster

the "backlash" to a position that the GOP took is helping the GOP (!?)