David Frum wrote recently that

“Whatever happened to immigration?

Republican House leader John Boehner says we are living through a political “rebellion” on the Right. Yet the issue that most excited conservatives just 18 months ago has almost disappeared.

Immigration went unmentioned in the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey. Doug Hoffman’s Palin-backed candidacy tiptoed around the subject—even at one point appearing to endorse guest-worker programs.

California is immigration ground zero. In the special election Tuesday in California’s 10th Congressional District, the Democrat, John Garamendi, endorsed a McCain-Kennedy style amnesty. The Republican, Doug Harmer, laid low. “[Immigration: A hot-button issue on ice, By David Frum, The Week, November 4, 2009]

Well, immigration hasn’t disappeared–for one thing, it affects all the other issues, (see list) for another thing, Obama and La Raza still want amnesty, and Republican voters don’t want it.

This would be a great opportunity for Republicans, if they weren’t afraid that anything they say against amnesty will be criticized both from the left and from the Righteous Right–which includes David Frum–as “racist.”

So the issue hasn’t disappeared, it’s been disappeared–like Lou Dobbs. I note, by the way that David Frum’s website used to be called NewMajority.com, it’s now called FrumForum. That it more credible–David Frum’s version of conservatism is not going to build a new majority.

Lawrence Auster asked

“How reliable can a book on political strategy be that is called “Conservatism That Can Win Again,” when its author endorsed and joined the campaign of a candidate who ended up winning one delegate? “

From City Journal:

William Voegeli

The Big-Spending, High-Taxing, Lousy-Services Paradigm

California taxpayers don’t get much bang for their bucks.

In 1956, the economist Charles Tiebout provided the framework that best explains why people vote with their feet. The “consumer-voter,” as Tiebout called him, challenges government officials to “ascertain his wants for public goods and tax him accordingly.” Each jurisdiction offers its own package of public goods, along with a particular tax burden needed to pay for those goods. As a result, “the consumer-voter moves to that community whose local government best satisfies his set of preferences.” In selecting a jurisdiction, the mobile consumer-voter is, in effect, choosing a club to join based on the benefits that it offers and the dues that it charges.

(more…)

Clayton Cramer writes

No Requirement For Legal Status For Health Care

If the Republicans decided that they wanted to win the 2010 elections–and were prepared to offend the corporate interests that like a supply of cheap labor–they would run with this next year. From the September 30, 2009 The Hill:

Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs.[More]

OK, but how likely is it that Republicans are going to start caring about winning? Especially since failed Presidential nominee John McCain is still considered the “titular head” of the party.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, which has been acting crazy lately,  posts this

Stephen Green has a “response” to a comment I posted earlier in one of the tea party threads. He deliberately omits the link to LGF, which makes this a rather odd sort of response — one I’m not intended to see, I guess.

Vodkapundit » A Response to Charles Johnson.

Over at LGF (no link, sorry) Charles Johnson notes that I’m taking phone calls from “white supremacist” Stacy McCain. (Thanks, Darlene.)

Now, I’ve worked with Stacy in person a couple of times, at the DNC last summer and at CPAC in February. Both were crowded, high-stress situations. At no time did I see Stacy treat anyone — of any color, creed, whathaveyou — with anything less than respect and good humor.

So, is Robert Stacy McCain a white supremacist? Hell if I know. But he enjoys breaking bread with agnostic half Jews like me, which would certainly make him a different kind of white supremacist.

Robert Stacy McCain writes for VDARE and Takimag, two disgusting, openly racist websites. And he’s a friend of Richard Spencer, a self-avowed white nationalist. McCain is a member of the white supremacist group League of the South, and he’s associated with the deeply racist American Renaissance.

Check out any of these groups on the web, Stephen, and see if I’m exaggerating. You might want to start with Google’s cache of the American Renaissance website.

I don’t link directly to them because they’re a hate group.

OK, these guys are nuts. Here’s what I had do to quote that post. I had to copy and paste it as text, to remove the Infolinks advertising spam, and then I had to paste in the links that Johnson dropped from his quote of Stephen Green’s post, probably because he was pasting as text–but possibly for moral reasons, I just don’t know. Because once you start saying “I’m going to talk about what this guy said, but not link to it,” you’re not doing internet journalism anymore.
It’s going from “We can factcheck your a**” to “We’re just making sh*t up.” For example, the LGF comment at issue, that neither Johnson nor Stephen Green linked to was probably this one, but who cares? After all, that comment had no link to what Johnson was complaining about, probably this Vodkapundit post, but again, who cares?

Anyhow, for the record, Robert Stacy McCain does not write for VDARE.com. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, either way. We have quoted him:

• Robert Stacy McCain writes in the American Spectator
• Another thing we need is more visual input, in the spirit of Robert Stacy McCain’s Rule 5.
• Robert Stacy McCain points to a Human Events interview in which John McCain [No relation--that guy really does hate people.]

The “visual input” post may be unsafe for work, unless you work at American Apparel.
But we never have run an article by R. S. McCain, or even a “Today’s Letter” from him. Nor would he be responsible for all the opinions of all our writers, alive and dead, if he had. And Little Green Footballs should know both those things.

Here’s how I described the website Little Green Footballs in a column a while back:

“Little Green Footballs is a website focusing on the high crimes and misdemeanors committed by Muslims around the world. It’s owned by Charles Johnson, who was instrumental in exposing Dan Rather. It posts stories of Muslim atrocities, and allows comments, which means it has a large number of people writing random things on the site.”

They were attacking Paul Belien and his Flemings for excessive whiteness–which they can’t help, they were born that way. Now Charles Johnson, the Democrat who owns Little Green Footballs, is attacking Robert Stacy McCain for being a white Southerner, which again, is something that McCain can’t help. He was born that way. McCain defends himself ably here.

By the way, Johnson might protest that he wasn’t attacking people because of their color; but because they were secretly fascist or secretly neo-Confederate, but all America’s Great and Good Liberal media testify that if you oppose President Obama, it must be because of his color. I’m holding Johnson to the same standard.

Lee Hockstader, [email him] has an article in the Washington Post saying that amnesty would be “sane” immigration reform. The obvious corollary is that an immigration moratorium, or even an effort to enforce the laws already in place would be insane.

Sane Immigration Reform on Tap?

By Lee Hockstader
September 13, 2009

The chances of building a sane immigration system seemed unlikely enough in 2007 before it was squashed by divisions among Democrats and a talk radio-fueled revolt on the right. If anything, they look even worse now, given the competing debates over health care and energy, a jobless rate edging toward 10 percent, and a plateau or decline in the number of illegal immigrants in the country. [Morew]

Of course, the reason why there were divisions among Democrats, as well as grass roots opposition to McCain and other members of the Republican “leadership” who were for amnesty is that 70 percent of the American people at any given time are likely to oppose amnesty, and this includes most Republican voters (some Republican donors feel differently) and at least half of Democrats. It’s like the old joke about the dog food that wasn’t selling in spite of massive advertising campaigns and endorsements: “But the dogs don’t like it!”

Resurfacing, I find that Immigration Patriots have a new hero in the form of Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC).

Quite likely at some cost to himself – there is Democratic talk of special fund raising for his defeat - Wilson’s interjection into President Obama’s Health sermon has obliged the MSM to give space for refutations of Wilson’s assertion that illegals are likely be able to access benefits under Obama’s proposals. For instance
Illegal Immigrants Trigger Fight by Foes Over Obama’s Overhaul By Meg Tirrell and Nicole Gaouette Bloomberg September 11 2009

The refutations are ineffective of course, because the simple fact is that Congressional Democrats have repeatedly sabotaged efforts to put teeth into vague statements purporting to exclude illegals to prevent fraud. Why would they be doing that if they do not plan to turn a blind eye to fraud?

And as my sensitive friend from California pointed out the other day, if it is not explained where the huge costs thrown on hospital Emergency Rooms by forcing them to treat illegals are to be shifted, how can the finances of Obamacare be evaluated?

The weakness of the left’s defenses is well illustrated by this Bloomberg article. It produces an academic with the fine old American name of Ku to downplay the fraud problem:

“Can some people cheat? Some people can cheat at virtually anything.”

While methods of checking eligibility may not have been specified in Obama’s proposal, “there are relatively straightforward ways to monitor it that the federal government” has used before, such as requiring and confirming Social Security numbers, Ku said.

This is laughable. Has Ku never heard of the illegal immigrant Identity theft problem?

Tell Professor Ku to get up to speed (be polite).

White House Press Secretary Gibbs similarly makes a fool of himself.

I would think it would be somewhat of a bad course of events, if you’re here illegally, to alert people that you are here illegally and sign up for a government program.”

What about the bankrupting inundation of America’s schools by the illegal children of illegals? Don’t their Parents sign up?

To any one familiar with the ferocious style of the British House of Commons the idea that interrupting the Chief Executive during a speech is obscenely horrible appears ridiculous. There is some discussion in the blogosphere of the superiority of this system for instance here.

And it probably would have the great advantage of training American politicians to fight one another without immediately lapsing into cries of Nazi! and Liar! which are basically signs of forensic poverty. We could be spared fiascos like Teddy Kennedy’s Mudd moment, and emotionally unstable nasties like John McCain would get discarded early.

But as matters stand, it is because of Representative Wilson’s deed that the MSM has had to devote space to the question of illegals benefiting from the Health Care package, and the Democratic tacit acceptance of it. They very definitely did not want any attention on this matter.

A dirty job perhaps, but one which only an American could do. Congressman Wilson did it, and VDARE.com salutes him

Robert Stacy McCain gets beaten up by various bloggers for discussing the same thing Commentary was discussing:

Call It the ‘Peter Brimelow Rule’

by Robert Stacy McCain on September 10, 2009

No conservative white Christian is allowed to discuss ethnicity and culture. Only liberals and members of ethnic minorities can do that.

You never discover the fine-print rules of American public discourse until you’re accused of violating them. Generally speaking, liberals ignore cultural discourse among conservatives. Only when you discuss potentially sensitive topics in such a way as to waive your Miranda-warning right to remain silent—“Anything you say can and will be used against you by the New York Times”—will your contributions to the discourse be wrenched out of context as proof of your malevolent intent. At some point, you’d think I might cease to be amazed by this distinctive habit of liberals, but they keep coming up with innovative new variatons on their otherwise predictable idiocy.

Over the weekend, while seeking out a certain quote about Van Jones’ resignation, I found myself at the Web site of Commentary magazine, where I noticed a symposium in which six writers — including Bill Kristol and David Gelernter — discuss Norman Podhoretz’s new book, Why Are Jews Liberals? This struck me as an interesting subject, so after I was finished blogging about Van Jones, I wrote a blog post excerpting the symposium and adding my own thoughts. Little did I suspect that by this modest contribution to the discourse I would thereby enhance my notoriety.

It occurred to me that, liberalism being principally an urban phenomenon (remember that 2004 electoral map showing Democratic blue areas as pinpoints in a sea of Republican red?), and American Jews for the most part being residents of our nation’s larger metropolitan regions, the “town-and-country” factor might be involved in the trend that Podhoretz and the symposiasts were discussing. Ergo, I offered this modest suggestion:

If Messrs. Podhorhetz, et al., wish to promote conservatism among American Jews, let them find some way to encourage Jewish families to move to small towns in the Heartland . . .

Innocuous enough, unless you view the world through the prism of liberalism, wherein all conservatives are crypto-Nazis. So this comment got me linked all over the Left side of the Internet, with such creative and subtle blog-post titles as, “The Final Solution to the Liberal Problem.” Surveying the reaction, it is remarkable how I seem to be suspected of anti-Semitism by the same liberals who spent years portraying the Bush administration as a Mossad-orchestrated neocon Zionist conspiracy. One discerns that liberal arguments on such topics can be summarized in three words: “Conservatives are evil.” When it comes to proving that point, the standards of evidence are quite flexible. [More]

Very flexible. Of course the original Peter Brimelow rule is this one:

“Because the term “racist” is now so debased, I usually shrug such smears off by pointing to its new definition: anyone who is winning an argument with a liberal.Or, too often, a libertarian. And, on the immigration issue, even some confused conservatives.”[Alien Nation, page 10]

From the LA Times:

Obama is fast losing white voters’ support

His approval ratings with the crucial bloc have plunged since April. Strategists say the healthcare debate is largely to blame, but that’s not the only reason.

By Peter Wallsten

After a summer of healthcare battles and sliding approval ratings for President Obama, the White House is facing a troubling new trend: The voters losing faith in the president are the ones he had worked hardest to attract.

New surveys show steep declines in Obama’s approval ratings among whites — including Democrats and independents — who were crucial elements of the diverse coalition that helped elect the country’s first black president.

Among white Democrats, Obama’s job approval rating has dropped 11 points since his 100-days mark in April, according to surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. It has dropped by 9 points among white independents and whites over 50, and by 12 points among white women — all groups that will be targeted by both parties in next year’s midterm elections.

“While Obama has a lock on African Americans, his support among white voters seems to be almost in a free fall,” said veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse.

Strategists in both parties blame Obama’s decline on growing discontent with his policy agenda, particularly after a month of often-rowdy debate over his proposed healthcare overhaul, in which some conservatives accused him of socialism. Obama’s ratings seem likely to rise again if he wins passage of healthcare legislation this fall.

But the drop in support among whites also comes as some conservatives have stoked controversies that have the potential to further erode Obama’s standing among centrists — including some controversies that resulted from White House stumbles.

One such episode came to a head Sunday when Van Jones, Obama’s green jobs czar, resigned after a week of criticism over past inflammatory statements and for signing onto conspiracy theories questioning whether the U.S. government played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks. A White House official acknowledged Sunday that Jones had been vetted less rigorously than other officials. …

Pew first identified a slippage in white support immediately after a news conference in July, when Obama surprised many by saying that a white police officer had acted “stupidly” in arresting a black Harvard professor.

Still unclear is whether Obama’s slide in the polls is due solely to his policies, or questions about his personal background or allegiances.

During the presidential campaign last fall, the nation’s economic meltdown swamped any attempts by Republicans to portray Obama as having radical associations with figures such as his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

Which Republicans? Certainly not John McCain, the losing candidate. (more…)

When The American Cause announced that Peter Brimelow would join Ward Connerly and Lou Barletta to speak on the topic “Winning the Hillary Voters,” libertarian blogger Dave Weigel dismissed the panel as, “Winning Over Hillary Voters With White Nationalism”

“So, that’s the editor of an anti-immigration Website, a man who travels the country organizating anti-affirmative initiatives, and a Pennsylvania mayor who lost his 2002 and 2008 runs for Congress in the northeastern Pennsylvania counties that went for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the presidential primary. This seems to read much more into Clinton’s infamous comment that she was winning “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans” than she meant.

Weigel failed to note that Ward Connerly is black and that his initiatives have won in blue states full of working class whites such as Michigan. He also forgot that Barletta not only received over 7% more of the vote than McCain did in his district; but in—as far as I know—an unprecedented event, the Democratic Party of Hazleton gave him the nomination in a landslide as a write-in candidate. But anyone who suggests that you can win working class white Democrats by opposing affirmative action and illegal immigration is a “white nationalist” to Weigel.

So I was naturally surprised to see Weigel write an excellent piece about how Republicans can win by appealing to white voters turned off by our “post racial” presidents racial politics after Gatesgate, exactly what Steve Sailer argued for in VDARE. Weigel points to Obama’s rapidly falling approval ratings among white voters in response to his Racial policies. He quotes GOP Strategist George Fletcher, “He got really close to losing the image he has as a post-racial president. For a few days, the question for a lot of people became, ‘Wait a minute. Is he the president of the United States? Or is he just the president of minorities?’”[GOP Sees Opportunity With White Voters After Gates Saga, August 7, 2009 ]

Weigel noted that low turnout among elderly whites and high minority turnout contributed to GOP’s 2008 loss, and now “The problem for Democrats is that the white voters who might sour on the president because, in part, of the race issue are more likely to turn out to vote than the young and black voters who made up his margin of victory in 2008.”

For some reason, Weigel doesn’t call this strategy “white nationalism.” Well neither has VDARE. The Sailer Strategy is just common sense.