Mickey Kaus On The Message Of The Election — Amnesty Lost!

11/07/2014

Senator Mary Landrieu didn’t look confident before the election — now she’s in a runoff

Before the election, neoliberal immigration patriot Mickey Kaus pointed out in the Daily Caller that even if Karl Rove didn’t want to make the election a referendum on amnesty, it would be:

Whether D.C. GOP leaders try to “nationalize” the immigration issue or not, 2014 is emerging as a de facto, sub rosa referendum on amnesty. Immigration is the hammer wielded by Republican candidates in no less than 8 contested Senate races, by my count. It’s a central issue of the campaigns in six states — Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New Hampshire. In two others, Republican challengers are making somewhat more feeble anti-amnesty stands — North Carolina (where the GOP candidate, Tom Tillis, has suspect anti-amnesty credentials) and Alaska. [Update: The Alaskan GOP anti-amnesty attack may not be so feeble now that Dem Sen. Begich has cast the "deciding vote backing Obama’s [executive] amnesty plan.”] If the Republicans prevail in all eight of those races they’d net a total of 6 additional seats, enough to swing the Senate.
If that happens, how will the MSM avoid mentioning the truth (that “immigration reform” cost the Democrats Senate control)? I have confidence reporters will find a way. There are lots of other issues in the world, after all. They can always blame the border surge from Central America (which they can then declare over). If the Republicans should fall short of a majority– by winning, say, only 6 of the amnesty-centric races– amnesty will still have lost its referendum, but the press will be able to subsume that lesson under the “Dems Survive” headline.

But the media isn’t everything. If Pryor, Shaheen, and Landrieu, who all voted for the Senate amnesty bill, now get defeated (in large part) because of that vote, it is a lesson that won’t be lost on other pols, whatever the press says, whether or not the issue is “nationalized.” The lesson will be: It’s not as easy to fool the voters as the lobbyists think it is.

A Referendum on Amnesty?, September 18, 2014.

It was illustrated with the picture, above, or Senator Mary Landrieu looking like a deer in the headlights. Today, in What Schumer Wrought … Kaus totes up the result of voting for the Gang of Eight amnesty:

FIND THAT MESSAGE: Obama’s policies were on the ballot — we have it on good authority (Obama’s). That includes “comprehensive immigration reform,” as embodied in the Chuck Schumer’s Senate “Gang of 8? legalization + immigration increase bill. So how did it do? Let’s see:
Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas voted for the Gang of 8 bill. He’s GONE.

Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina voted for the Gang of 8 bill. GONE.

Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado voted for the Gang of 8 bill. GONE

Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska voted for the Gang of 8 bill. Almost certainlyGONE

Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana voted for the Gang of 8 bill. She will probably be GONE after a January runoff.

Alison Grimes supported the Gang of 8 bill in Kentucky. DEFEATED

Michelle Nunn supported the Gang of 8 bill in Georgia. DEFEATED

Greg Orman supported the Gangof 8 bill in Kansas. DEFEATED

Bruce Braley supoorted the Gang of 8 bill in Iowa. DEFEATED

Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Mark Warner of Virginia voted for the Gang of 8 bill and BARELY SURVIVED against longshot challengers.

Do you sense a pattern in there somewhere? Schumer would probably be chairman of the lucrative Banking Committee if he hadn’t pushed his amnesty bill.

Even if the press intentionally misses this message, the pols and their advisers won’t. Do you think that, say, Oregon’s Democratic Senator Ron Wyden will be eager to vote on the Son of Gang of 8 next year? He’s up in 2016. Yesterday, his state’s voters rejected a bill to provide drivers’ licenses to illegals — it lost by a margin of 68 to 32, with more votes cast against it than were cast in favor of any candidate. It lost big in Democratic areas and lost in Republican areas. I don’t think Wyden wants to vote for another “comprehensive” bill.

As I've written repeatedly, politicians, while incapable of seeing the light, can certainly feel the heat.

In the words of Territorial Governor William J. LePetomane n the movie Blazing Saddles, their attitude is:

We've gotta protect our phony baloney jobs!

Amnesty may not be dead, but it’s badly wounded.

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