Hillary Stumbles on Immigration

IN THE FASHIONABLE salons of the East, illegal immigration is not much discussed. The gathered denizens may chat about the deplorable scandal that engulfed the Knickerbocker basketball club or the dominance of the New England football outfit or even the soul-crushing traffic on the Beltway, but seldom do they address the topic of illegal immigration. But outside the fashionable salons of the East, there is no subject that more readily animates the general public than illegal immigration.

During the last political fortnight, Hillary Clinton learned a lesson on this matter in a very public and damaging way. If she should wind up losing the race for the Democratic nomination, her bungled attempt to straddle Tim Russert's direct question of whether or not she supported Elliot Spitzer's plan to issue drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants will become infamous. Lloyd Bentsen's "You're no Jack Kennedy" will have to step aside; Hillary's exchange with Russert will become the gold standard of a politician's promising future imploding on live TV in less time than it takes to say, "Head on--Apply directly to the forehead."

The difficulty Hillary has engendered for herself with this issue has shocked a Democratic establishment which had previously convinced itself that the public's strong opinions regarding illegal immigration are a talk-radio created fiction. Leave it to the modern left--whatever they can't blame on Halliburton, they blame on Rush Limbaugh. In truth immigration is an issue that the electorate really cares about. Actually, it's the issue that people really care about.

THERE RECENTLY WAS a special congressional election for Marty Meehan's seat in MA-05. Meehan had faded away to where all well-connected Bay State pols go--to the state university system where a life of everlasting ease awaited. The race for his seat pitted Paul Tsongas's widow, Nikki, against Republican Jim Oganowski, a retired Air Force colonel whose brother was killed in 9/11.

Tsongas outraised Oganowski by roughly four to one. What's more, while other states might bristle at the nepotistic handing down of a congressional seat, such things aren't a problem in Massachusetts. Indeed, in the Commonwealth strong bloodlines are often a candidate's strongest asset. (For more on this phenomenon, I suggest a brief study on the Kennedy family.)

As if this weren't enough to suggest Tsongas would enjoy a proverbial cakewalk, George W. Bush and the Republican party are about as popular in Massachusetts as the Ebola virus. In 2004, John Kerry won MA-05 by 16 points. Lest you think this was just a favorite son cleaning up in his own backyard, Kerry performed less well in Massachusetts than Al Gore did in 2000.

Remarkably, Nikki Tsongas won the race by only five points.

I interviewed Jim Oganowski for a Boston talk radio show in the race's final weeks. Oganowski was obviously a decent guy, and a hard working candidate. But in appearances before the liberal Massachusetts public, he hewed to the same depressing talking points that New England Republicans have to if they want any chance of winning. He talked about ending the partisan bickering in Washington. He called the Iraq war a mistake (although he said we had to stick it out). He declined to identify himself with the national Republican party, instead insisting he would be a trans-partisan figure.

And then we began talking about illegal immigration. For a second, I thought Tom Tancredo had hijacked the other side of the line. Oganowski was firm, uncompromising and unequivocal--no citizenship for illegal immigrants. This was actually the centerpiece of his campaign. It dominated his campaign literature. And in liberal Massachusetts, he almost won.

When the public debated the McCain/Kennedy bill in June, it seemed like the only people who favored it were the Democrats in congress and a handful of their Republican colleagues. The opposition to the bill among Republicans not serving in high office was nearly monolithic. Conservatives hadn't been so united since the administration tried to put Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court.