According to Rick Amato, the lessons to be learned from Republican Brian Bilbray' victory over Democrat Francine Busby in the election to replace California's Duke Cunningham boils down to this:
Illegal immigration mattered a lot, ethical problems mattered a little and the campaign skills between the two candidates varied noticeably.
[. . .]
A conservative message on illegal immigration communicated without gray areas, a well-organized and well-run campaign led by an experienced campaigner.
As Bilbray's campaign manager says, President Bush should reconsider his support for the Senate's so-called immigration reform bill. Mr. Bilbray opposed the Senate bill, while Mrs. Busby supported it.
Even worse for the Democrats, Busby and the Democratic national did all they could to sell their culture of corruption mantra. It didn't work.
Busby was her own worst enemy. When a recording surfaced, just days before the election, of Busby's infamous "You don't need papers for voting" speech, it was all over. As reported by San Diego Union-Tribune:
If an election can turn on a sentence, this could be the one: "You don't need papers for voting."
[. . .]
Busby said she was invited to the forum at the Jocelyn Senior Center in Escondido by the leader of a local soccer league. Many of the 50 or so people there were Spanish speakers. Toward the end, a man in the audience asked in Spanish: "I want to help, but I don't have papers."
It was translated and Busby replied: "Everybody can help, yeah, absolutely, you can all help. You don't need papers for voting, you don't need to be a registered voter to help."
Amato writes that Busby may have painted the entire Democratic Party into an illegal-immigration corner:
Democratic candidates in congressional races across America now must demonstrate they are not pandering to illegal immigrant groups, while at the same time courting their favor -- a position Mrs. Busby found herself in days before the election, as her rhetoric became more and more conservative.
Bilbray's victory is more evidence that President Bush, the Senate, business leaders and immigrant rights activists are too far ahead of the American public on what to do about the ever increasing flood of illegal aliens.
As I have posted before, history has proven that legalization of illegal aliens is a mistake. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 made nearly 4 million illegals eligible for legal residency. That policy was an obvious failure because now there about 12 million "undocumented workers" In the U.S. If these millions of illegal aliens are legalized now, then we should only expect that twenty years from now we will have to consider legalizing 30 million more.
Granting amnesty, or legalizing illegal aliens, as the Senate bill does, encourages the violation of our laws, and perpetuates illegal immigration. The message legalization sends is get into the U.S. any way you can, eventually the U.S. will make you legal.
Apparently, Bilbray voters agree. How about you?
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Comments: 6
This election, however, the GOPer squeaked by with less than a 4% margin over the Dem. And this despite the fact the GOP threw an unprecedented $5M into the campaign.
Let's recap, shall we?
1. Solidly conservative district.
2. Massive cash infusion from GOP into a race that seats a congressman for only 5 months.
3. Margin of victory down nearly 20%
From these facts, CY surmises this was a great victory for the xenophobic extrremists and a defeat for the Dems and their campaign against corruption.
Unfortunately for you, there's not a shred of evidence to support such a contention.
Again, this is a very, very conservative district. Do you seriously believe illegal immigration suddenly became a litmus test issue to the overwhelmingly GOP electorate? Frankly, less than two years ago--illegal immigration was a big issue as well. Yet, less than two years ago--the GOP won by a margin of over 22 points. Recently, they won by less than 4 %.
Additionally, you ignore the fact the RNC poured $5M--an unheard of amount in a congressional special election--into a campaign which will be fought again in about 5 months.
OTOH, there is a marked correlation between the GOP's many ethical and legal deficiencies and their declining support in a solidly GOP area.
What really caught my attention here is the difference in the following two statements:
"You don't need papers for voting."
and
"You don't need papers for voting, you don't need to be a registered voter to help."
Parsing the sentence into half changes the tone completely in my opinion, and if the Busby campaign hadn't capitalized on the parse it might not be so celebratory now.