Immigration Polling
Add this to the list of things that have gone right lately for President Bush: Americans appear to be drawing closer to his view on the immigration debate.But that hasn’t alleviated the squeeze on Republican candidates in the fall elections. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that the party’s conservative electoral base remains at odds with broader public opinion on the issue, including sentiment of the nation’s swelling Latino population.
By 50%-33%, the survey shows, Americans support the views expressed by President Bush and also by businesses, Hispanics and Democratic leaders: that steps to strengthen border security should be combined with a guest-worker program for prospective immigrants and those who have been in the U.S. for at least two years. Yet a 44% plurality of conservatives back an agenda combining border security and deportation of illegal immigrants — making it difficult for Republican politicians to embrace the majority opinion.
On immigration, President Bush “is where the American public is,” says Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who helps conduct the Journal/NBC survey. “The difficulty is, the base of the Republican Party is marching in the other direction.”
Sometimes I think it is good to listen to your base. Other times, it seems more desirable for our leaders to actually lead and work to change the opinions of those they represent. This seems to be something that has been lacking for a while. Bill Clinton did it to an extent in moving a good portion of the Democrats away from protectionism and into a more centrist economic outlook, although sadly the Democratic Party seems to have retreated from that. Reagan of course was quite effective at doing so. Sadly, that isn’t a strong suit of President George W. Bush.
