Weekly Briefing

Elizabeth Dole's anti-immigrant pandering marches on  

There are very few prominent North Carolina political leaders of either major party with clean hands in the ongoing discussion of immigration policy. With a few exceptions (Governor Easley, for one, has at least occasionally displayed a little bit of backbone), most have either piled on the anti-immigrant bandwagon or remained shamefully silent. And, to be sure, neither party has a monopoly when it comes to promoting bad, but superficially popular public policies - be it the "education" lottery, corporate giveaways masquerading as "business incentives" or so-called "anti-gang" legislation.

Still, there's something almost surreal about the spectacle that now surrounds North Carolina's senior senator and her one note campaign for reelection.

Six years ago, when the once-upon-a-time North Carolina resident returned to the state of her childhood in hopes of putting a cap on her political career by winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, many reasonable people had some cause for optimism. Like her or not, Dole was a national figure with a reputation for a measure of modernity and moderation (at least in comparison to her predecessor). She had lived in Washington most of her adult life and seemed to have some degree of commitment to the idea that government was not inherently evil in all circumstances. Of course, she was also a woman - a fact which seemed to offer some small measure of hope that empathy for the oppressed and downtrodden might occasionally bubble to the surface.

Taking the low road

Today, however, all those hopes have vanished and seem remarkably naïve as the senator pursues her divisive, cynical and mean-spirited anti-immigrant crusade. On Tuesday of this week, Dole's staff posted (it's beyond belief that she actually wrote it herself) an entry on her new campaign blog entitled "Illegal Immigration." The 1,500 word post comes just a week after the release of her first TV campaign ad - a one-minute "get tough on immigrants" piece that features eleven Republican North Carolina sheriffs and one Democrat talking about Dole's supposed to action to expand the involvement of local law enforcement officials in immigration law enforcement.

The blog post was her second substantive effort (the first one was also about immigrants - sorry, "illegal aliens") and offers several noxious and ridiculous comments and references that include:

Relying upon the immigrant-bashing advocacy group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) as her source for immigrant statistics - Here's what she says: 

"According to 2006 estimates from the non-partisan Federation for American Immigration Reform, about 400,000 illegal aliens live in North Carolina. FAIR estimates that the cost to North Carolina taxpayers for emergency health care, education and incarceration was $997 million in 2006 alone!"

With the entire federal bureaucracy at her disposal, Senator Dole has to rely upon FAIR, (an organization that has been characterized as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its numerous direct and indirect ties to the extreme anti-immigrant right) for her numbers?

Opposing the idea of printing government materials in multiple languages - Here's the quote:

"I support overturning Bill Clinton's executive order (emphasis in the original), which requires government run agencies to have materials printed in various languages. If you are here legally and want to become a citizen, you must learn English."

Oh really? And what should folks who are legally here but not proficient in English do while they learn? Not pay taxes? Not understand the law or their rights or how to report a crime? And what about refugees or the elderly or others who simply can't learn English?

Claiming that her home city is to blame for the current immigration situation and that she bears no responsibility - Here's the statement:

"Last summer, Washington tried to fool us again with promises to secure our borders and enforce our laws IF we legalized the millions of illegal aliens who are in America today. Albert Einstein once said, ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.' This experiment was attempted in 1986, and as I mentioned, the illegal alien population has at least quadrupled since then."

We all know that it's right out of the standard Senate candidate playbook to run against Washington but, honestly, when someone who has lived and worked in D.C. for decades and whose party controlled Congress and the presidency for four of her six years as a Senator tries it, they deserve some kind of special audacity award.

What's really going on here?

Aside from the absurdity and offensiveness of her specific comments and tactics, Dole's election year obsession with immigrants is disturbing on at least two other grounds.

First is the matter of what she's not discussing. Are we really to believe that today, nearly a decade into the 21^st Century, at a time in which America faces several global political crises, an endless foreign military occupation, a slumping economy, mushrooming debt and growing inequality at home, and a planet on the brink of environmental catastrophe that the salient political issue is the deportation of undocumented immigrants accused of drunk driving? While reforming immigration law is certainly an important issue, is it really the issue that ought to supersede all others?

The second point relates to Dole's cynicism. The senator is no dummy. She knows that the answer to both of the questions above is a resounding "no." She knows that a good and energetic senator will have many more important matters to attend to and on which to cast her vote than whether and how local sheriffs can help deport undocumented immigrants.

Like many other cynical politicians before her, however, Dole is banking on the premise that she can distract voters from her thin and undistinguished record by dishing up large servings of red meat on an emotional issue that plays to their fears and baser instincts. In the tried and true tradition of Karl Rove and numerous segregationist politicians of the past who distracted constituents from their real economic interests with hate and innuendo, Dole is hoping to distract modern North Carolinians from their dissatisfaction with the current state of the country by focusing on "the other."  

What's next?

For all of its offensiveness, Dole's strategy may prove effective. She remains the favorite this fall and thus far, her opponent, State Senator Kay Hagan (who Dole, for some reason, insists on referring to as "Mrs. Hagan"), has done little to call the Senator on her transparent cynicism - opting instead for a sort of kinder, gentler "get tough" approach in which she attempts to avoid saying anything too controversial and looks for a way to change the subject.

Still despite all the hype, voters may be more sophisticated than they're given credit for and the issue may be receiving a lot more attention than it deserves. Several credible surveys have placed immigration near the bottom on the list of important problems facing the country - below the economy, Iraq, education health care and many others.

If this is so, both candidates may be making a mistake - Dole in overplaying her hand and Hagan in failing to call the Senator's cynical bluff.    

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 8:38 am and is filed under Weekly Briefing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.