So Fabian Nunez thinks the illegal immigration issue is dangerous for Republicans. How thoughtful it is for him to want to help us avoid the electoral pitfalls of border enforcement (read it here.)
Nunez joins the ranks of media-appointed experts from across the political spectrum who warn that Republican officeholders who dare to support enhanced border security measures will be punished by a loss of support from Hispanic-American voters. But this isn’t such an easy issue for Democrats either.
Perhaps Speaker Nunez should ask Phil Angelides and Steve Westly why they weren’t giving speeches at last weekend’s protest rally in Los Angeles to half a million potential primary voters. Maybe he should ask them to explain the political calculations behind their decisions to not even attend. And he should definitely ask them when they will run television ads bragging about their support for drivers licenses for illegal immigrants.
If either Westly or Angelides has the nerve, they’d tell Nunez that Democratic candidates face a significant risk of backlash as well and that many moderates in their own party also want to see more aggressive measures to crack down on illegal immigration. In the meantime, the difference between the self-serving political analysis of a state legislator who has never faced a competitive general election campaign and the more careful machinations of his party’s candidates for governor is instructive. Spin only gets you so far.
The real political legacy of Proposition 187 is that it scared both Republican and Democratic politicians away from seriously addressing the ilegal immigration issue for more than a decade. Now that voter frustration on both sides of the issue is bubbling over, the politics of immigration reform are very tricky and just as perilous. But it’s an equally difficult challenge for candidates of both parties to find the right balance when talking about their opposition to illegal immigration and their commitment to providing support for legal immigrants.
Which means that Nunez is doing one of two things. This could just be an easy way to rally his own base by demonizing the opposition. Either that, or the Speaker of the State Assembly has never heard of a swing voter.