Anti-Illegal Elections

Well, its election time here in Ohio. We have no non-partisan issues, so Mrs. X will be staying home today (she’s still pregnant by the way). I am a registered Republican so I’ll be voting in the primary when I get off work. Most of the races are pretty cut and dry. We’ve got a couple of local races where I’m still tossing one candidate vs. the other. The big one is the governor’s race: Blackwell vs. Petrio for the Republican ticket. Blackwell is polling ahead of Petrio and Petrio’s last campaign ad reeked of desperation so it probably doesn’t really matter whom I vote for. Blackwell will win the nomination and be down anywhere from 7 to 15 points to Ted Strickland five months out.

Meanwhile, ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), a socialist workers group, organized a large protest with immigrants and has probably done more to hang them out to dry than any other event. Reading a few blogs from San Diego and Los Angeles, where the boycott had the widest participation, there seemed to be very little overall impact to businesses. Some inconveniences were reported, but nothing ground to a halt.

However, some snooping around to businesses that had significant percentages of people not showing up for work showed that the managers were not overly concerned. In fact, most responded that they would be firing a number of those who did not come in. Sadly, there is a feeling that you can just plug and chug. Someone who is more appreciative of the job can replace anyone who isn’t working out.

Worse for the immigrants than just the loss of their jobs is the public perception that has no entered in the thought process of most Americans. The winds were starting to blow against illegals, especially after many of them began demanding amnesty and reward for flouting the laws of this country. The biggest outcry has come from people who recently entered this country legally and have been going through the heavy bureaucratic red tape trying to get what these other folks are demanding to get easily. They have not helped their case by including members of fringe groups who go around waving Mexican flags and demanding that California and Arizona be returned to Mexico. The image of the Mexican flag over an upside-down American flag still burns rather hot in some people’s minds.

The boycott also called up what some will use as a powerful anti-illegal statistic. Los Angeles Public Schools reported approximately 25% absenteeism yesterday. Some of that were probably kids taking advantage of the situation even if they are not children of illegals. But throw in those children of illegals who did show up and 25% is probably a reasonably accurate number of the children of illegals (whether the children are citizens or not) who are in the school system of LA. The education budget for LA is approximately $13 billion. This means that anti-illegal groups are going to be talking about the over $3 billion that are spend educating the children of illegals in LA alone. If that statistic gets out to Joe and Jane six-pack of the mid-West and the South, guess what kind of hammer is going to be brought down on the local school boards?

Thus, by marching and attempting to demonstrate their power, power that is predominately an illusion due to the servitude that most are held in through fear, many illegal (and even non-illegal) immigrants are going to have some very hard times ahead. Arizona is already drafting legislation to create serious punishment and border enforcement for immigrants. The Democratic governor has promised to veto it, but the Republican congress is also crafting a ballot initiative to perform an end-around around that.

There have also been whispers that the minutemen or some other anti-illegal immigration group may field a third party candidate to get their concerns heard. When polled in Arizona, New Mexico, and other border states, a hypothetical third party candidate running on this issue does as well as a theoretical Democratic candidate and cuts deeply into the Republican base. Its an issue that cuts both ways and it’s not something that is going to go away anytime soon.