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Sunday, October 15, 2006
Eyes west and south, please — away from D.C.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The gay marriage crisis has passed. It’s time to worry about the fight over illegal immigration.
No, not that fight — not in Washington. Out there — in New Mexico, where 150 Georgia boys and girls in national guard uniforms stand in the hot sun, watching the U.S. border.
Two years ago, Republicans rode to glory on dozens of statewide referendums to ban same-sex unions. In Georgia, the state GOP seized the House, completing their grasp of power. Nationally, President Bush’s re-election victory was widely credited to “values voters.�
But this is 2006. Values voters are disenchanted, their enthusiasm sapped by any number of things: the Jack Abramoff scandal, Iraq, even the Mark Foley affair. In Georgia, many evangelical conservatives remain emotionally flattened by the summer defeat of Ralph Reed in the primary for lieutenant governor.
Something is needed to stir Republican blood. And so in color brochures, on TV, on radio, and in speeches, in races for the state Legislature, Congress, governor, and lieutenant governor, immigration has become the topic of choice.
You’ll remember this from Gov. Sonny Perdue: “It’s simply unacceptable for people to sneak into the country illegally on Thursday, obtain a government-issued ID on Friday, head for the welfare office on Friday and go to vote on Tuesday.�
Last month, many thought that statement a stray one-liner. Now it’s clear that it was an introduction.
Up in northeast Georgia, state Sen. Nancy Schaefer is running for re-election. She is the most vulnerable Republican incumbent in the Senate, and the Legislature’s most prominent advocate of conservative Christian causes.
But on her campaign web site, topping her list of issues is illegal immigration. She and two other Republican legislators have just gotten back from inspecting Georgia troops in Columbus, New Mexico, right across from Palomas, Chihuahua in Mexico. It’s just possible that a few pictures from their visit will be used in campaign brochures.
“It’s the No. 1 issue in my district,� Schaefer said.
“Everywhere you go, that’s what the Republican party is saying,� said Carol Jackson, the Democrat trying to oust Schaefer. “They’ve got nothing else to talk about.�
Another example: In House District 29, Democratic incumbent Alan Powell of Hartwell faces Republican Mike Griffin. Griffin is a local pastor and executive director of Ten Commandments-Georgia, a group dedicated to seeing the biblical laws on display in public buildings across the state.
Griffin has put out his first TV ad, funded by the state GOP. His issues are jobs, education, and “Georgia’s tough stance on illegal immigration.� He’s sent out a mailer, also paid for by the state party, featuring troops with binoculars on one side, and shadowy figures climbing a corrugated wall on the other.
There’s more to come in other races. We’ve come across a pair of photos destined for GOP brochures, of a Mexican bus station. The wall lists its destinations: Atlanta, Dalton, Gainesville, Rome, and las Carolinas.
Immigration may seem like a dicey choice for Republicans.
The failure of the Republican-controlled Congress to handle the issue, and the unpopularity of Bush’s solution for the Hispanic influx, are major ingredients in the national GOP malaise.
But by pointing at the troops — always a visually impressive thing to do — and at a largely symbolic piece of legislation passed by the General Assembly this year, Republicans hope to persuade their disaffected base that the GOP ticket in Georgia is filled with nothing but people on their side.
In other words, Washington outsiders.
