by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
Archpundit has a good summary of the latest "campaign from a defensive crouch" memo from Rahm Emanuel. See also Digby. I think this is one of those cases where the "most important issue" poll doesn't tell the whole story. Nor do the polls showing the public support for earned legalization . After all, polls in the early 90s consistently showed that crime was an important issue and 60% support for tighter gun control laws. Yet Dems are essentially done trying to push gun control laws because of the perceived efficacy of the NRA in both 1994 and 2000. This is because while lots of people will march to the polls to vote against their Congressman for voting to take away their guns and give them to the U.N., the voters who favor these laws won't use it as a reason to vote for anyone.
Immigration cuts a similar path; the median voter, who in most House districts is something like a middle-lower-middle class white woman in her 40s with some college education, isn't going to use a vote against various GOP immigrant-bashing bills as a reason to vote for a Democratic candidate, while the GOP can use its noise machine to whip up a furor and get more far right voters to the polls. Emanuel saw this close up in Tammy Duckworth's loss in Illinois, which is attributed almost entirely to negative ads and mail pieces stating Duckworth would raise taxes and give social security benefits to those illegal immigrants.
In addition, this serves as another reminder that the competitive seats in the House are in very unfriendly territory. Emanuel likes to say "there is no base" in these districts and use it to justify running to the right on issues where it doesn't make sense (like Iraq), but the party really does need to come up with some way of blunting the emotional impact of immigrant-bashing to help win those seats where the presence of a small Spanish-speaking minority is a recent phenomenon. The Human Rights Campaign seemed to have had some success fighting gay-bashing amendments by pointing out they're nothing but an attempt to change the subject, so that might be an avenue worth pursuing.
