Saturday, May 27th, 2006...8:12 am
Have the Terms of the Discussion Changed?
Has anyone seen Jon Kyl’s new ad? He’s talking straight into the camera, giving us his take on the border. What is interesting about this is that it is free of the sort of alarmism that we have grown to expect from so many conservative politicians on this issue. He comes out against “amnesty,” but says that “families should be given the opporitunity to gain legal status.” Given that until a couple of weeks ago, many Republicans considered such a thing the same as amnesty, something must be turning on the issue.
Given the rather amorphous nature of his suggestions (”secure our borders and enforce our law” could mean anything, couldn’t it?), it isn’t that much different from what Jim Pederson, George Bush, Jim Kolbe or even Raúl Grijalva suggests, at least not on the surface. Of course, it is different from what Kyl himself had been presenting up until the president’s speech.
One person that hasn’t bought into the “kinder and gentler” “compassionate conservative” line on this one is (you all already know who I am going to name, don’t you?) J. D. Hayworth. A press release on his website posted on Thursday trashes the president’s plan. I take it that Bush won’t be visiting Scottsdale this year.
6 Comments
May 27th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Many of us have been expecting this kind of flip-flop from Kyl for weeks now.
He’s no fool. He can see that his draconian, xenophobic, deport-em-all rhetoric was costing him voters. And with the constructive, comprehensive solutions coming from his opponent Jim Pederson, and backed up by Napolitano, Bush, McCain, Kennedy and now the vote of the Senate, Kyl and the rest of the radical rightwing are forced to come to grips with the truth: they clearly outside of the mainstream and their obstructionism has been part of the problem all along.
So Kyl either has to soften his stance and pretend he’s a kinder, gentler extremist or be ridden out on a rail in November.
Hayworth still thinks he doesn’t have to do this triangulation, because of the huge Republican voter registration advantage in AZ-5. But I predict that we’ll see him either get softer on the issue to try to woo the moderates, Indies and conservative Dems that he’s clearly run off with his bombastic tuff-talkin’ non-solutions, OR we’ll see him getting even MORE strident, trying to whip up even more destructive and self-serving frenzy from his xenophobic base.
I think a lot of folks are beginning to realize that Arizona will be greatly served when both of these members of the incompetent and corrupt Republican apparatus are given their pink slips in November.
It’s time for the mainstream to be represented in Arizona, again, and for the grown-ups to once more be in control of the government.
May 27th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
You DemoRats crack me up!!! You think you can buy a US Senate seat in Arizona? Your all delusional, dream on….Gonna be fun to watch “your” guv, Jack Napolitano get grilled by the Clean Elections Commission. Senator Kyl will continue to be the Junior Senator from Arizona…FERGEITABOUTIT!!!
May 27th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Funny…I was talking about Kyl’s new ad…and you went right back to the popular Republican talking point about Pederson “buying” the seat.
So, Republicans don’t like money in politics now? Will you be more supportive of Clean Elections now?
May 28th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Looks to me like the whole thing was cribbed from this poll and focus group driven report by Frank Luntz.
May 28th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
geo, is he softening his stance or just softening his rhetoric to make his stance more palatable to the electorate?
tony goprano, did you wander in from the Plugged In site? You bring up an interesting topic that has been studiously ignored over here … Janet Napolitano’s Clean Elections troubles. But doing it that way doesn’t help yourself. To paraphrase Prince, act your age not your shoe size. Then maybe we can discuss the storm cloud brewing over her campaign.
May 29th, 2006 at 12:17 am
Tedski in response to your question “So, Republicans don’t like money in politics now?” I would say no. I still love money in politics. If the Kyl v. Pederson race gets close watch the money poor into the state. Few people can raise money like a sitting U.S. President, even one with low numbers in the polls.
Kyl is a great Senator who is loyal to the principals of his party and those that voted him into office. I have not heard one Republican utter a word of disappointment with Kyl. If you think the independents will rescue Pederson in this election you should do some polling on the border issue among most likely to vote independents.
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