One of the strangest about faces I have ever known of occurred last week on the PBS news show, The McLaughlin Group, a featured regular of which is conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan. As someone who has hrough the years been ver vocieferous as to the dangers of ilegal immigration, yo would think that he would be among the first to tout the recent defeat of Democrat Diane Bisbey in the San Diego area special election for U.S. House of Representatives by the Republican Bilbray.
This had all the earmarks of a classic political upset, and comeback. Initially, Bilbray was far behind Bisbey in the polls. However, when Bisbey made a number of ill-advised statements concerning the legal rights of illegal immigrants being on the same level as that of not only legalized immigrants and naturalized citizens, but of American citizens in general, Bilbray pounced on this, particularly playing up apparrent Bisbeys suggestion that undocumented immigrants should even have the same voting rights.
Though Bilbray was accussed by the left of playing the race card, a case could be made that he was merely playing the hand he had been rather clumsily dealt by Bisbey. There was even a falling out with Arizona Senator John McCain, and a scheduled appearrance for Bilbray was canceled at the last minute.
Bilbray was in effect voicing support for the US House of Representatives version of the immigration bill, which is much more stridently pro border security than the Senate version favored by McCain, and President Bush, which is more oriented toward a long term goal of working out a goal of eventual citizenship for illegal aliens, while containing more modest support for border security enforcement in comparison with the House version. The Senate wants to take an incremental approach, and a simultanoeus one, to both, while the House is more adamant that border security should be implemtented first, and as quickly as is possible.
The result, of course, is that the election was turned on it’s head. Bilbray won, by a margin of about ten per cent, in the first election in at least recent memory that such a margin has been termed, by media pundits and Pro-immigration advocates, as modest.
Despite this, when this reality was pointed out, Buchanan, during last weeks segment of McLaughlin, chuckled at the suggestion, and then went on to suggest that the big untold story of the election was the taxation factor.
It was incredible for me to witness this, and makes me wonder about Buchanans motivations. After all, why would the taxation issue on it’s own make a heavily favored Bisbey lose an election by as great a margin that she was in some cases favored by? Why would this not have manifested in the earlier polls, i which she was heavily favored? Why would Bilbrays supporters suddenly remember the tax issue, seemingly at the last minute, while ignoring the hot button issue of illegal immigration that was in reality the focal point of the election?
Has Buchanan sold out on this issue? If so, it is an amazing turn of events. He has campaigned, as a Prsidential third party candidate, and to a large degree this was one of his major issues od concern, as far back as the year 2000, when he ran as the candidate for the Reform Party. Also, he, like Michele Malkin, has made apppearrances, lectured, and even wrote books expressing his concern about the matter. That is why for him, of all people, to deny the implications of this
The only question that remains is, if he has sold out, then for what-and to whom?
