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Whose GOP is it anyway?
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Jan. 22, 2000 |
Just as party strategists were unveiling a new marketing push aimed at Hispanic voters, very different ads were running in Iowa, paid for by the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR). In one newspaper ad, words printed over a dumpster read: "When those candidates tell you how unspoiled and beautiful Iowa is, ask them what they're going to do to keep it that way. Most likely you'll have to give them the answer: reduce immigration."
Another ad described the Iowa town of Storm Lake -- home to a large meatpacking plant employing hundreds of Latinos -- as a town "where quality of life is but a memory." The simultaneous unveiling of the new RNC spot and the ads bankrolled by FAIR provide a good snapshot of what the GOP will have to overcome if it hopes to genuinely pursue a "national Hispanic strategy," as GOP strategist Lance Tarrance advised last week. But it was not just in Iowa where anti-immigration advocates were making waves last week. In Arizona, GOP exile Pat Buchanan was decrying the "invasion" at the Mexican border. And in California, anti-immigration forces were busy gathering signatures and press attention for a ballot measure that may yet prove central to the 2000 fall campaign, and a thorn in the side of the GOP. Sources inside the Republican National Committee dismissed the Iowa ads as "xenophobic," originating from a "fringe, radical group." Gov. Bush himself decried the ads, and even called for increased legal immigration levels in an interview with an Iowa newspaper. "The major parties want to run and hide," said Dan Stein, executive director of FAIR. "These candidates want to talk about problems with education and health care, but they don't want to talk about immigration as a serious contributor to those problems. It's like talking about the trade deficit without talking about China." Stein said the issue of immigration pits the nation's pro-immigration, moneyed elite against blue-collar workers whose jobs and wages are being threatened by continued immigration. "Bush is claiming he is a more attractive candidate because he doesn't have this streak of [vitriol] in his political rhetoric. The truth is, the Republican base is to the right of Pat Buchanan on the immigration issue. The people who want the issue to go away are the immigrants themselves and the people who use them -- lawyers and politicians."
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