The GOP's Six-Ring Circus
Scott Galindez
The Actor, the Preacher, the Prosecutor, the Doctor and the Venture Capitalist.
It should not surprise anyone that the Preacher is surging fast in the Republican race. It also would not surprise you if I said a Doctor from Texas is also on the rise.
It surprises me that the Actor from Tennessee who was supposed to rescue a lackluster field has created no excitement for his campaign, and that the Prosecutor who was the first front-runner is running so poorly in the early states that he is claiming he is running a national campaign and not focusing on the early primaries.
The Venture Capitalist, who was the second to capture front-runner status, is now spending his time explaining why we shouldn't be concerned that he is a Mormon. OK, I'm not, but if it's not an issue why is he addressing the nation on it?
Well, I guess we will start with the main tent. A month ago the Prosecutor and the Venture Capitalist were in the main tent; they are now struggling to keep from becoming sideshows, as the Preacher has stolen center stage. He's witty, and he comes across as more compassionate than the rest of the GOP field. He is a Baptist minister, he's from Arkansas and his name is Huckabee - sounds like a political consultant's nightmare, right? Not for Dick Morris, who regularly chats with his former client and is praising him in newspaper columns. Huckabee says Morris is not available for consulting, but perhaps that is because the Baptist minister doesn't want to be seen as taking advice from someone who reportedly likes to suck on prostitutes' toes.
Kidding aside, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is rising fast and has the kind of momentum that might be hard for the other candidates to stop. It still remains to be seen if his appeal will be sustainable outside the Bible Belt; he is not doing as well in New Hampshire as he is in Iowa and South Carolina. His wit has brought him to the top, but, like Pat Robertson, his religion may scare people in the northeast and on the West Coast.
Perhaps the Prosecutor, Rudy Giuliani, is onto something. While Huckabee and Romney (the Venture Capitalist) trade very small states early, he is increasing his lead in bigger states like New Jersey and California. Giuliani is not playing in the Bible Belt, but is in the northeast and on the West Coast, while Romney is fading everywhere but New England and the southwest. The Concord Monitor even spent an entire column telling us why not to vote for Romney, calling him "phony." In New Hampshire, where he has had huge leads, polls now show him leading only in the single digits.
OK, we have talked about the Preacher, the Prosecutor and the Venture Capitalist. Due to his recent fundraising success, it's time to talk about the Doctor. I took a lot of heat for saying Dennis Kucinich was in the race to influence the debate. Personally, I think that it is an honorable thing for candidates who have something to say but don't have the packaging needed to win, to get in and influence the debate. I think Dennis Kucinich and Doctor Ron Paul are influencing the debate on the war, and deserve praise for doing so.
Ron Paul has been an outspoken critic of the war since the beginning, and may be the only Republican candidate who can change the direction this country has taken and restore our reputation around the world.
Progressives would love to be choosing between Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich next November, but would I be providing you with a service if I sold false hope? Doctor Paul has raised eyebrows with his recent fundraising strength, and there has even been some momentum in the polls. While his libertarian economic policies are acceptable to the GOP base, it's the social policies that the Christian right will never embrace. While the Doctor doesn't scare the Preacher or the other front-runners in the primary season, a third-party run by the Doctor would scare them the same way another Texan named Ross Perot did in 1992.
The Actor left us all anticipating his entrance into the race - he was going to breathe new life into the campaign and be the guy that could bring the party together; he would be the instant front-runner. Oh, well, Fred Thompson hasn't done well enough to warrant any more space in this column. Actually, what we are learning is that it is a six-person race. Nobody is running away with the lead. Some have had their moments, but they haven't lasted.
The Prosecutor still leads nationally, but can he sustain losing in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina? The Preacher is facing new scrutiny but has the momentum, while the Venture Capitalist is fading. The Doctor has the right prescription, but this is the GOP primary: they won't accept his medicine. The Actor has been dull. Wait, that's only five rings, the title says six?
Over in the sixth ring is the experienced, steady senator from Arizona, who can't figure out why the other characters in the cast seem to be stealing all the thunder. I just wonder, when the GOP voters actually go to the polls, will they settle on the one they know?
This is not an endorsement of John McCain; I disagree with him on most issues. I look at him and what most polls say Republicans believe in, and wonder why he isn't their man. If I were a Republican I would want the Doctor's medicine, but I think it's too bitter a pill for them to swallow.
One thing is clear to me; the Republicans are trying to redefine themselves, which has been McCain's downfall since he is not a fresh face. Huckabee seems to be the flavor of the month, and he may just have peaked at the right time.
Scott Galindez is Truthout's Washington, DC Bureau Chief.
Immigration Takes Center Stage in Iowa
By Dave Montgomery
McClatchy Newspapers
Monday 24 December 2007
Perry, Iowa — In 1990, this docile prairie town in central Iowa had 47 Hispanics. But after 15 years of steady migration from Mexico and Central America, Latinos now account for more than a quarter of Perry's 8,000 residents, co-existing with the descendants of the white European immigrants who settled the farm-belt community in the 19th Century.
The demographic upheaval in Perry and other towns in Iowa, all hundreds of miles from the Mexican border, illustrates the extent of immigration into America's heartland.
Since 1990, the number of Hispanics in Iowa has increased from 32,647, which was then 1.2 percent of the state's population, to 112,987, or 3.8 percent of the current population of 2.9 million. Some demographers expect the number to triple again in just over 20 years, increasing to 335,000 by 2030.
The trend has pushed illegal immigration into the forefront of presidential politics — at least among Republicans — as Iowa prepares for its first-in-the-nation caucuses on Jan. 3.
The topic reverberates through town hall meetings and Republican debates, with candidates scrambling to outdo one another in getting tough on illegal immigrants as they compete for fed-up voters who constitute a broad and vocal chunk of the GOP political base.
One advocacy group, Campaign for a United America, has responded with a two-week radio blitz to counter what it says is "toxic, anti-immigrant rhetoric."
Some 19 percent of Iowa Republicans ranked immigration as the "most important" issue of the 2008 presidential election, according to a McClatchy-MSNBC poll earlier this month. That compares with 11 percent of Republicans nationally and 4 percent among Democrats, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
"The immigration issue, just like security, is right at the top of the list," said state Republican Party Chairman Reinhold "Ray" Hoffman, adding that Iowans are "very frustrated" with what they perceive as unchecked illegal immigration to their state. "I've never been at a function when someone didn't ask about it."
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who's moving up in the polls, came to Iowa's immigration center on Thursday to appear at a rally in Marshalltown, the site of a highly publicized round-up of illegal immigrants at a Swift meatpacking plant just over a year ago. Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee also crossed the state in a six-day bus tour that included stops in Marshalltown and other communities with surging immigrant populations.
Interviews among longtime Iowans in Marshalltown and Perry reveal a mix of sentiments. Some say that many of the demographic changes have had a positive impact by exposing once all-white communities to cultural diversity and fresh perspectives. At the same time, most say they have little tolerance for those who break the law to enter the country, and they often blame illegal immigration for hurting local wages and increasing crime.
"I'm not prejudiced toward Mexicans. It's the illegal ones who are the problem," said Dennis Barnes, 63, of Marshalltown, after attending the Huckabee rally. Barnes said he worked for 19 years at the Swift plant, but left in the 1980s as management began hiring Mexican workers at $3 an hour less than he was making.
"It's a big issue and something has to be done," said Robert Ames, a 58-year-old retiree who lives near Marshall. "There are too many illegals in here, and if we don't do something, there is going to be a bigger problem later."
The intensity of the issue in Iowa reflects the social tensions that appear as Hispanic job-seekers entered the country, often illegally, to fill jobs in agriculture, the service industry, and meat-packing and related industries. Businesses and community leaders often encouraged the migration to confront chronic labor shortages and low employment, sometimes traveling south of the border to work with sister cities in Mexico.
Meat-packing towns such as Perry and Marshalltown feature Spanish-language storefronts sprinkled among downtown shops and surging Hispanic enrollment in public schools. The arrests of 89 undocumented workers at Marshalltown's Swift plant, part of a multi-state round-up in December 2006, inflamed the outcry over illegal immigration, although Swift said it had worked vigorously to verify employee eligibility.
Perry, northwest of Des Moines, is seemingly one of those communities that have come to accept the changes despite initial tensions, said city administrator Delbert "Butch" Niebuhr. "I'm sure there are some who resent it, but I don't believe that's the highest percentage."
The community took root in 1869 as a stop on the Des Moines and Fort Dodge Railroad and initially was settled by immigrants from Europe. A message posted on the city's outskirts urges visitors to "make yourself at home."
Perry's modern-day transformation, depicted in a documentary called "A Little Salsa on the Prairie," began less than two decades ago with a change of ownership of the local plant — the current owner is Tyson's Fresh Meats — and expanded as word-of-mouth and family connections brought more Hispanic immigrants.
Latinos settled in then-vacant homes in various neighborhoods, rather than in one area, thus blending into the community. Hispanics make up 40 percent of the school enrollment, and many high school graduates have gone to college and returned. Various Hispanic-oriented services are enmeshed in the community.
Renaldo Morales, 50, originally from Nicaragua, moved to Perry from San Diego with his wife and three children in 1993. He's a part-time manager at Tienda Latina, a downtown store stocked with Spanish-language videos and CDs, Latin cuisine and stocking caps with the logos of Latin soccer teams. His 22-year-old daughter attends Drake University, and a son, 21, plans to go to college next year.
A more recent transplant, who identifies himself as Jose Sanchez, came to the United States from El Salvador three years ago and acknowledged that he doesn't have "papers." A sister-in-law picked him up in Houston and brought him to Perry, where he works as a janitor. His wife and two teenage children have since joined him.
Eddie Diaz, the director of the Community Action Agency in Perry, said there undoubtedly are illegal immigrants in the community, but the exact number is impossible to determine. But, legal or illegal, he said, they all share common goals: finding work, buying homes and pursuing "all the other issues in life."
With Huckabee moving to the front of the GOP pack, many Iowa voters are now closely scrutinizing his immigration positions.
As Arkansas governor, Huckabee embraced legislation to grant college scholarships to illegal immigrants but, as a presidential candidate, he's toughened his tone with a recently released nine-point plan that requires illegal immigrants to register and then return to their home countries within 120 days to apply for U.S. immigration. Those who stay in the country without registering would be barred from re-entry for 10 years if they're caught.
Huckabee told Marshalltown residents that he welcomed an endorsement by Jim Gilchrist, the controversial founder of the Minuteman Project, a self-described "citizens' vigilance operation" that patrols the border. Pro-immigration groups said Huckabee's plan and the Gilchrist endorsement demolish any perception that he's a moderate on immigration.
Nearly all GOP candidates have spoken out against "amnesty" — the buzzword for unconditional legalization — although they differ on details. Former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts appears to be faring well among conservatives by opposing legalization visas, while former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is viewed with suspicion because of the perception that New York was a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants.
State and local leaders acknowledge that social acceptance of the cultural changes varies widely across the state.
"It's a very tough issue," says former Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack, whose administration pursued an orderly flow of immigration to avoid an economic decline. "Some communities have embraced this. Some communities are probably having a difficult time with it."
Fort Worth Star-Telegram researcher Marcia Melton contributed.
www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122607A.shtml