[KR: How does one cover a topic when there is no news coverage of it? Letters to the editors offer one possibility. Here is a good question posed by Rudy Espino at Arizona State. Any ideas or suggestions? Please add to comments on this post.].
Immigrant Politics Bloggers,
Of course, you are aware of the most recent inability to muster enough
votes in the Senate for the Dream Act. And if you were following it
closely, you might have noticed that two of the previous co-sponsors of
some version of the Dream Act were among four of the Senators that did
not cast a vote - McCain and Kennedy; the other two no-votes were Boxer
and Dodd.
I would have thought all 4 would have been definite aye votes. But,
perhaps, McCain and Dodd, in particular, were on the campaign trail and
saw the writing on the wall about the likely outcome of this vote.
Well, if you go to a roll call cast one hour before the Dream Act
cloture vote, you find three no-votes: Kennedy, Boxer, and Dodd. McCain
was there on the Senate floor one hour before the Dream Act cloture
vote.
I have yet to find any press accounts questioning why Kennedy and McCain
were gone on this cloture vote. Kennedy, it seems, was clearly not in
the building - of three roll calls that day he was absent on all three.
McCain, on the other hand, was present for two of those three - and the
one who he chose to be absent on was that Dream Act cloture vote.
Strike you as odd?
Rudy
–
Rodolfo Espino, Arizona State University
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
[KR: Until now, it looked like only Republicans were getting torn apart politically over the immigration debate (pro-business vs. cultural and law/order conservatives). Clinton’s dancing around the issue and divided opinions among Iowa Democrats noted in this article shows that Dems can no longer benefit from keeping a low profile on some of the thornier issues the way they did when the GOP was in the Congressional majority.]
November 1, 2007
Immigration Is Fodder for Clinton Rivals
By MARC SANTORA, New York Times
It was a moment that crystallized Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s struggles in Tuesday night’s debate. Questioned about a plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, Mrs. Clinton at first seemed to defend it, then suggested she was against it, until finally, pressed for a direct answer, she accused the moderator, Tim Russert, of playing “gotcha.”
Her verbal twists and turns provided her opponents with fodder for their central critique of Mrs. Clinton, which coursed throughout Tuesday’s debate: that she was trying to have it both ways on the issue, much as she was trying to portray herself as antiwar while voting to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
Like the debate over Iraq, the exchanges over granting licenses to illegal immigrants underscored the tensions for Mrs. Clinton as she seeks to court various interest groups who are the building blocks of winning the Democratic nomination.
She has recently intensified her efforts to win the caucuses in Iowa, where an influx of illegal immigrants has raised concerns among many of the state’s long-term residents. But she must also court Hispanic voters who are expected to wield greater clout this election season through early primaries in New York and California.
(more…)