This article appears in the new February issue
of The American Spectator. To subscribe to our monthly
print edition, click here.
WHEN HILLARY CLINTON’S HUSBAND was elected president in 1992 with
just 43 percent of the popular vote, many analysts believed that he
owed his victory to the nutty Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, who
did well among middle-class and wealthy white voters who typically
voted Republican. The biggest challenge Hillary faces in winning
the presidency in her own right is that much of the public wouldn’t
consider voting for her, making it difficult to attract more than
50 percent of the vote. Thus, her best hope may be to follow in the
footsteps of her husband and divide and conquer.
No issue remains more divisive to Republicans than immigration.
It divides economic conservatives and populists, Beltway
policymakers and grassroots activists, as well as urban
conservatives and those living along the border. The split within
the conservative movement was reinforced by the starkly different
interpretations that were offered for how the immigration issue
played out in the recent midterm elections.
One side argues that the elections proved that the immigration
issue, which had been trumpeted by some as the potential savior of
the Republican Party, was a dud. Despite blanket news coverage of
immigration protests last spring, by the time the fall came around,
the issue wasn’t on the radar in most congressional races. Even in
those races in which immigration was prominent, the results were
not encouraging for proponents of tougher measures against illegal
immigrants. In Arizona, both J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf ran as
hardliners on illegal immigration and lost. In a column published
after the election, Linda Chavez wrote, “Now that the people have
spoken, maybe the Congress will finally listen and pass
comprehensive immigration reform.” President Bush, in press
conferences and interviews, has repeatedly said that he hopes to
work with the new Democratic Congress to do precisely that.
Not so fast, says Chris Simcox, president of Minuteman Civil
Defense Corps, the grassroots group that gained notoriety for
organizing volunteers to help patrol the border. Simcox disputes
the conventional wisdom that interpreted the election results to
mean that Americans rejected a get-tough approach to illegal
immigration. “That’s a completely biased spin,” he says, and offers
a competing analysis. He argues that Hayworth lost because of his
links to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Graf fared poorly
because he didn’t receive help from the Republican establishment,
which supported his more moderate opponent in the primary. He also
notes that when Arizona voters were able to vote specifically on
the immigration issue, they overwhelmingly approved three
anti-illegal immigration ballot measures, and another one to
establish English as the state’s official language.
NO MATTER WHICH NARRATIVE is accurate, it’s clear that deep
fissures remain on the immigration issue, which could mean big
trouble for Republicans in the next presidential election. Of the
three top contenders for the Republican nomination (John McCain,
Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney), none is considered acceptable to
anti-illegal immigration hawks. Even Sam Brownback, who is
presenting himself as the only true conservative in the field, came
out in favor of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants,
drawing the ire of those who view such a policy as rewarding
criminal behavior. Rep. Duncan Hunter, who is a hardliner on
illegal immigration, has said he intends to run, and Rep. Tom
Tancredo, who has become the most prominent spokesman for tougher
measures to stop illegal immigration, told TAS he was “seriously
considering” seeking the nomination. But with Hunter and Tancredo
long shots to win the nomination, chances are anti-illegal
immigration activists will be left without a candidate in either
major party. The question is whether they will stay home, or even
defect to a third party in large enough numbers to swing the
election, especially if that means risking another Clinton
presidency.
“The Republicans always have their bogeyman, and this time it
will be a bogeywoman,” said James Clymer, the chairman of the
Constitution Party, which hopes to woo conservative defectors from
the Republican Party, especially on the immigration issue. Clymer
said that the party expects to be on the ballot in 46 to 50 states
in 2008. The list of possible Constitution Party nominees includes
former Republican presidential hopeful Alan Keyes, Minuteman
Project founder Jim Gilchrist, and Jerome Corsi, who co-authored a
book on immigration with Gilchrist and also co-authored Unfit
for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.
Tancredo and Rep. Ron Paul would also be welcomed into the party,
but neither of them is expected to leave the Republican Party.
“The American people aren’t being suckered into going with one
party or another anymore and I think this will be a key litmus test
and a real indication, this next presidential election, of just how
willing voters are to go away from both parties,” Simcox said. In
particular, he viewed a McCain candidacy as the most likely to
cause anti-illegal immigration voters to abandon the Republican
Party, because of McCain’s co-sponsorship, with Ted Kennedy, of a
comprehensive immigration reform package. “We’ll do everything we
can to ensure that McCain doesn’t get to the White House.”
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, not to be confused with
Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project, has 61 chapters in 29 states, 9,000
registered volunteers, and an e-mail list of 1.3 million. In
addition, the group started a political action committee last year
that raised nearly $1,000,000; 10 of the 18 candidates it supported
won.
Richard Shaftan, who runs the PAC, argues that even the threat
of a Hillary Clinton presidency may not be enough to dissuade
disgruntled conservatives from bolting the Republican Party. “If
you have someone like McCain, the chances of a viable third party
candidacy would be a very real thing, because to a lot of
conservatives it would make no difference if it was McCain or
Hillary Clinton, only McCain would be more dangerous because he’d
be a Republican pushing all of this nutty stuff.”
It’s difficult to quantify the potential appeal of a third party
movement fueled by the immigration issue, because polling results
on immigration depend on the way the question is asked and how
people define “amnesty” or “tough border security.” A Tarrance
Group poll conducted days before the midterm elections found that
by a margin of 48 percent to 46 percent, Americans agreed with the
statement: “Any program in which one who is currently an illegal
immigrant could earn the right to citizenship is amnesty.” But when
given further details, 68 percent of Americans thought “A program
in which an illegal immigrant could earn citizenship over many
years by paying a fine, working, paying taxes, living crime free
and learning English isn’t amnesty and is a reasonable way to deal
with 12 million illegal immigrants here now.” Incidentally, that’s
a position along the lines of the McCain-Kennedy bill that angered
many grassroots conservatives. The same poll found that going into
the elections, 11 percent of Americans identified illegal
immigration as their most important issue.
HOWEVER, A THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE would not have to garner Perot’s
19 percent to make a difference in the outcome of the election. In
2000, Ralph Nader captured less than 3 percent of the popular vote
nationally, but his 97,000 votes in Florida were more than enough
to cost Al Gore the election. And we might still be looking at a
Republican-controlled Senate today were it not for Stan Jones, the
Libertarian candidate in Montana who may have siphoned off enough
votes from incumbent Republican Conrad Burns to elect the
Democratic challenger, Jon Tester. In 2008, the Republican nominee
could be especially vulnerable in potential swing states where the
immigration issue is prominent such as Nevada, Colorado, New
Mexico, and Arizona (if the nominee isn’t McCain, since it’s his
home state).
The potential impact of the immigration issue will depend
largely on what happens legislatively this year.
“I don’t think there will be a wholesale rush to the left on
this, and by that I mean a massive amnesty or guest worker program
that will be put through with one big bill,” Tancredo said.
Instead, he predicts an “erosion” of some of the measures that were
passed last year. For instance, the new Congress probably won’t
adequately fund the construction of a 700-mile border fence that
was authorized in a law signed by President Bush weeks before the
elections. In addition to tougher border enforcement, Tancredo
advocates imposing penalties on employers who hire illegal
immigrants, which, he argues, would cause a natural exodus of
immigrants back to their own country because they could no longer
find work in America.
IF PRESIDENT BUSH FOLLOWS through on his vows to work with the
Democratic Congress on bipartisan legislation, it could trigger one
of two reactions. On the one hand, it could highlight the fact that
the two-party system has failed those who support tougher measures
against illegal immigration. “If they passed amnesty, that will be
the catalyst for millions more people going away from both parties
and going with a third party movement,” Simcox said.
But Chuck Muth, who deals with the immigration issue as
president of the grassroots organization Citizen Outreach, thinks
that if any legislation is passed, the immigration issue will
become less important because voters will determine that the issue
is being dealt with, as has been the case with past
legislation.
“It takes the issue off the table for a lot of people,” Muth
said. “A lot of people were worked up [last] year, but when
Congress passed the legislation that authorized building the wall
on the border, we saw the intensity of that issue drop tremendously
even though there wasn’t money, even though it wasn’t built….We
saw activism in that issue drop in our direct mail.”
In the next year, the leading Republican presidential candidates
will do their best to placate the conservative base on the
immigration issue. McCain will likely emphasize the hoops that
illegal immigrants would have to go through to obtain citizenship
under his reform plan. In a speech in New Hampshire a few days
before the midterm elections, Giuliani gave a preview of how he may
handle criticisms that he was lax on immigration as mayor. He
argued that his policies as mayor were based on the fact that he
took over a city that already had an estimated 400,000 illegal
immigrants and emphasized that many of the same tactics he employed
to cut crime in New York could be applied to improving border
security (such as increasing law enforcement personnel and making
better use of technology). Romney, meanwhile, in one of his last
acts as governor, authorized state troopers to detain illegal
immigrants — a move that drew kudos from Pat Buchanan.
But if none of these gestures is enough to satisfy anti-illegal
immigration hardliners, Hillary Clinton may be able to return to
the White House — even if most people don’t like her.
