Who will I support? – part eleven

The end is in sight as I’ve hit my second-most important issue, border security and immigration. Yes, I’m a border hawk and I’ll be scoring the candidates accordingly.

I’m going to jump right into this installment with the GOP’s Sam Brownback. He actually has a pretty long description on his website, one I’ll cut and paste a bit as a summary.

Sam Brownback:

Border security is Senator Brownback’s top priority and has consistently voted to immediately secure the border. “One of the primary jobs of the United States government is to ensure the safety of the American people. In order to do so, we must secure our borders.”

“We will fail to stop illegal immigration until we prove that living and working here illegally is not an option.”

We must enable all law enforcement to identify and quickly remove criminal illegal aliens.

A secure, fraud-resistant ID must be the foundation of a robust worksite enforcement system that requires every new employee to be screened for valid work authorization.

Interior and worksite enforcement are essential for homeland security and national security.

As one of Rudy Giuliani‘s “12 Commitments”, he will “end illegal immigration, secure our borders, and identify every non-citizen in our nation.” But he doesn’t elaborate on this yet.

Mike Huckabee talks about the issue here.

Border fencing is Duncan Hunter‘s bag.

While John McCain isn’t thought of as a border hawk, he speaks his piece on his website.

Ron Paul also devotes a webpage to the subject, a rarity.

As issues become more important to me, Mitt Romney has become a regular presence on my posts. Immigration is no exception.

Tom Tancredo, a known border hawk, posts this and says:

Illegal aliens threaten our economy and undermine our culture. While our brave soldiers risk their lives to protect us overseas, our political elites lack the courage to defend us at home. I am 100% opposed to amnesty. As President, I will secure our borders so illegal aliens do not come, and I will eliminate benefits and job prospects so they do not stay.

Fred Thompson weighs in with commentary about the recent Hazelton immigration decision.

Making it a GOP clean sweep on the issue is Tommy Thompson:

Governor Thompson opposes amnesty and believes that America must enforce its immigration policies to the fullest extent of the law. People who are found to be in the country illegally should be returned to their home countries and should have to wait at the end of the line, behind people who are seeking to enter the country or become citizens legally.

Unfortunately, the Democrats only have 4 of the 8 candidates talking about this vital issue, even if they’re wrong.

John Edwards lumps this topic in with homeland security.

Mike Gravel:

Senator Gravel favors protecting our borders and monitoring the flow of illegal immigrants into our country. He also favors a guest worker program and setting up naturalization procedures that would fairly bring existing illegal immigrants into legal status.

Barack Obama makes his feelings known on border security and immigration too.

And as a governor of a border state (New Mexico) you can bet Bill Richardson knows the importance of the issue.

With 25 points at stake, we’ve reached the point where hitting a home run on the subject, one of my pet issues, will boost a candidate in my eyes while the wrong approach will doom him.

Sam Brownback talks tough, but he switched his cloture vote on the recent immigration bill, going from amnesty to no amnesty as he saw how the vote progressed. So is he sincere about the things he says here? I can’t give him any points regardless of his talk.

I’ll give Rudy 5 points for bringing up the subject with the right ideas, but without details that’s all I can give him. At least he didn’t switch votes.

Mike Huckabee has the right ideas about the border fence and opposing the late, unlamented immigration bill. But aside from those who commit crimes (aside from the very act of entering illegally) he does nothing with the millions of illegals already here or their employers. I’ll give him 11 points – not quite half since he addresses not quite half the issue from my standpoint.

Similarly to Huckabee, Duncan Hunter talks about the border fence to keep new illegals out but nothing about those here. So he gets 10 points.

John McCain has repeatedly voted the wrong way on the issue. If a person is already illegally here, why would they come out to get a “Z” visa? And if they did get one, all that means is they had four years to sit and wait for us to stop enforcing the laws as we’ve done for the last 20 years. I’m deducting 10 points from his score.

Ron Paul gets most of the issue right, with the exception of discouraging employers from hiring illegals. I’d like him to be a bit more specific about how he would physically secure our borders, but overall I think his plan is worth 19 points.

Mitt Romney supports an ID system for those who aren’t citizens, which I suppose I can live with. Of course, that also depends on the federal government actually keeping track of these when they can’t keep track of the green card and visa holders we have now. So that’s a problem, not to mention that anyone can claim to have a Social Security number thus not need the ID. With that and the vagueness about securing the borders, I can only give Mitt 5 points.

While Tom Tancredo has a reputation as an immigration hawk, the idea of cutting the number of legal immigrants bothers me, as legal immigrants are the ones who come here and assimilate into the culture – if not first generation, certainly by the second. He is correct about eliminating benefits so the illegals don’t stay, though. It’s sort of a mixed bag as he’s also nonspecific about methods of securing borders. I’m sort of disappointed that I can only give him 10 points – I was expecting more.

Fred Thompson gets 13 points just for his commentary about the Hazelton immigration decision and critique over Congress tying local and state government hands by preempting the local laws but not enforcing federal laws. It’s too bad he started so late in the game, I’m interested to see how his campaign builds.

Tommy Thompson works to the reverse of most of his cohorts, addressing illegals already here but not border security. He gets a few extra points for advocating the enforcement of existing laws first. I’ll give him 14 points.

On the Democrat side, we begin with John Edwards.

As part of an overall homeland security effort, Edwards wants more personnel on the border (read: more union members). But he fails to address any of the other border issues that can work in tandem with the increased manpower. I’ll give him one point.

It can be said that Mike Gravel is almost in line with John McCain on the immigration issue, since he favors security at the borders but in return giving amnesty for those illegals here. And that’s the wrong approach. I’ll deduct 13 points.

The only things I like about Barack Obama’s approach is the part about legal immigrants who fight for our country getting expedited citizenship and the emphasis on employers not hiring illegals. But then again, if the bill he supported was passed we wouldn’t have any illegals. He joins the chorus in supporting more border infrastructure as well. So I’m dropping Barack 12 points.

Bill Richardson has been there. And although he whines about the federal government not helping him out when it comes to border security, he’s got that same “seal the borders” mentality as most Republicans do, as well as employer verification of legality. But he’s in favor of amnesty and that’s a definite strike against him. He won’t be able to complain about the federal government if he’s in charge of it, will he? I’ll deduct 7 points off his score.

Closing in on the finish line, we have an exciting GOP race with four candidates having a good chance and a couple others not all that far away. Tom Tancredo didn’t take the opportunity to put away the field.

  1. Tom Tancredo, 60.5 points
  2. Rudy Giuliani, 53 points
  3. Mike Huckabee, 53 points
  4. Ron Paul, 51.5 points
  5. Duncan Hunter, 41 points
  6. Fred Thompson, 37 points
  7. Mitt Romney, 28 points
  8. Sam Brownback, 18.5 points
  9. Tommy Thompson, 11.5 points
  10. John McCain, -4 points

On the Democrat side, it’s likely this will be the final order since I see them all scoring the same on the last part.

  1. Mike Gravel, -15 points
  2. Joe Biden, -35.5 points
  3. Bill Richardson, -48.5 points
  4. John Edwards, -48.5 points
  5. Hillary Clinton, -55.5 points
  6. Chris Dodd, -57.5 points
  7. Barack Obama, -66.5 points
  8. Dennis Kucinich, -97.5 points

You may have guessed the contents of part twelve. Yep, it’s the Long War that concludes the 12 parts tomorrow.

 

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

2 thoughts on “Who will I support? – part eleven”

  1. Since you’ve got Huckabee in thrid place on your list, what do you think about his decision in 1999 to appoint Fay Boozman as the head of Arkansas Department of Health? Dr. Boozman was infamous at the time for his stated belief that rape victims only very rarely get pregnant, as they were subject to a “rush of hormones” that prevented it. Huckabee supported this guy despite that statement and other highly questionable activities of the “doctor.” What does that say about Huckabee’s judgment? He is trying to come across as a happy-go-lucky alternative, but you might as well scratch him off your list–once his way out of the mainstream beliefs are exposed, he’ll get crushed.

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