No more hedging

Michael Barone argues that illegal immigration will be a major issue in next year's election:

The reason is that the Democrats -- and Bush -- are out of line with public opinion on the issue. That became clear as the Senate debated a comprehensive immigration bill in May and June. Most Republicans and many Democrats, in the Senate and among the public, turned against the bill. Supporters of the bill tended to ascribe that to something like racism: They just don't like having so many Mexicans around. But if you listened to the opponents, you heard something else. They want the current law to be enforced. It bothers them that we have something like 12 million illegal immigrants in our country. It bothers them that most of the southern border is unfenced and unpatrolled. It bothers them that illegal immigrants routinely use forged documents to get jobs -- or are given jobs with no documents at all. You don't have to be a racist to be bothered by such things. You just have to be a citizen who thinks that massive failure to enforce the law is corrosive to society.

Yelling "racist!" at people who are concerned about this problem doesn't work any more -- it just makes people mad. The Democrats need to get on the right side of the issue. If they don't, it could become their biggest electoral liability next year.

Here's an interesting "political culture clash" from Virginia.

Update (6 November): Read this and this too.