In NY-23, Anti-Immigrant Groups Proved They’re Out of Touch With the Mainstream…Yet Again

America's Voice Blog

Posted 11/05/09 at 01:07pm

In NY-23, Anti-Immigrant Groups Proved They’re Out of Touch With the Mainstream…Yet Again

Before Tuesday’s special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional district, we reported that the nativist extremist Minuteman PAC had predicted third-party Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman was “positioned to win a landslide victory.”

The Minutemen -- and the rest of the right-wing fringe groups that endorsed Hoffman over moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava -- grew even more confident about their chances when Scozzafava dropped out of the race the weekend before the election.

As usual, however, immigration restrictionists turned out to be out of touch with reality. Not only was the election not a “landslide,” but Hoffman’s opponent, Bill Owens, beat Hoffman 49% to 45%. Owens is the first Democrat to hold the seat in over a century -- a sign of just how badly the right wing has alienated mainstream Americans.

Immigration wasn’t a major issue in the campaign, but that didn’t stop the Minutemen from using it to try to scare up support for Hoffman. Unsurprisingly, the PAC’s claim that Hoffman was the “only candidate for Congress opposed to amnesty and government handouts for illegal aliens” failed to turn out voters -- Hoffman did worse than expected even in the parts of the district considered his “base.”

Meanwhile, Owens, the Democrat, articulated a common-sense approach to immigration when asked about it, and endorsed comprehensive immigration reform. Here’s his answer to a question about crackdowns on undocumented workers:

“I believe that we should enforce the laws that we have on the books, but I think it’s very important that we have comprehensive…immigration reform. Because that is going to allow us to get the job done and that’s extremely important for the North Country economy.”

This answer didn’t get a lot of attention in the press during the lead up to the election. Why not?

Because it’s not a controversial position.

As we’ve pointed out time and time again, the majority of Americans understand that the immigration system is broken and that it will take comprehensive immigration reform -- not extremist fearmongering -- to fix it.

The right-wing fringe has shown yet again that it’s out of touch with mainstream opinion -- even in conservative areas like New York’s 23rd congressional district.

So here’s a question for Republicans and conservative Democrats heading into 2010: are you going to let yourselves be bullied by the Minutemen and other out-of-touch fringe groups? Or are you going to choose the common-sense solutions voters really want, and work to get them done?