Immigration Has Become THE Issue in 2010

I think a lot of us assumed that Obamacare would be the issue driving the election in 2010 but the Arizona immigration debate has taken over the spotlight.  That's not good news for Democrats, though as J.R. Dunn points out at American Thinker, there are ways they'll try to deflect the real immigration issues and replace them with phony cries of racism and "rights":

Thanks in large part to Governor Jan Brewer's bold action in signing SB 1070, immigration is shaping up as the issue of the 2010 election. More than the economy, more than terrorism, more even than the question of whether Obama was chased back into the oval office by a rat, a vole, or a trilobite, illegal immigration has become the arena in which the upcoming election will be fought.

The left cannot win that match. Illegal immigration violates too many fundamental precepts involving security, economics, and questions of national identity. Polling reveals an overwhelming public aversion to illegal immigration, with opposition reaching up to 70%. The Democrats might be better-advised to run on a platform calling for more child abuse.

No wonder the president was "thin-skinned" in his meeting with Republican senators yesterday, where following the meeting he suddenly announced more National Guard troops for the border, a move he never mentioned during the meeting itself.

But leftists can distort the debate by ignoring the central argument and instead playing the margins, as they so often do. They are past masters at changing the subject and directing debate into channels where they hold superiority. Consider how they distorted the public view of the War on Terror, playing on fears of government surveillance, Nazifying efforts to protect the country, and smearing the agents and officials attempting to implement a workable strategy. By refusing to acknowledge that the U.S. was at war, concentrating on ill-conceived areas of the national effort, and planting seeds of doubt and paranoia, the left undermined the entire anti-terror program. Today, nearly a decade after 9/11, America's anti-terror system consists of Janet Napolitano holding a microphone. Once the jihadis get past her, they pretty much have a clear shot at anything they like, as Fort Hood, Detroit, and Times Square have so clearly demonstrated.

A similar process is at work involving the illegals crisis. The attempt to bulldoze opposition through demos and marches has failed. Instead, the left, along with the captive legacy media, will hard-pedal questions vaguely related to the topic while by no means central to it. We will hear endless talk about "rights" (always the rights of illegals, never the rights of citizens), racism, and the government as an oppressive force unleashed against third-world victims. All contrary arguments, on the other hand, will be abstracted out of comprehension or flushed down the memory hole, in the same way that rancher Rob Krentz, murdered by an illegal on his own land, and Deputy Louie Puroll, shot by cross-border drug smugglers, have become nonpersons to the eastern media and liberal politicians.

There's a lot more at the link, including recommended strategies for dealing with the obfuscation the Dems are sure to try. Read it all.