Has the Weekly Standard backtracked on Graf/Hayworth myth?

Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard - as well as other cheap-labor supporters - have tried mightily to spread the myth that one of the reasons some GOP candidates lost is because of their stance against illegal immigration.

Now comes Weekly Standard reporter Duncan Currie with what some Kreml' watchers might consider to be a bit of a correction:

...Fans of the Bush-Martinez strategy point to losing Republicans J.D. Hayworth, Randy Graf, and John Hostettler. Here were three of the toughest border hawks of the campaign. Hayworth and Graf were running in Arizona, one of the states most affected by illegal border crossings. Yet they both lost, as did Hostettler in Indiana. Meanwhile, a national exit poll found that voters--when given two options for dealing with illegal immigrants--preferred giving them "a chance to apply for legal status" over mass deportation by a margin of 57 percent to 38 percent. All these data, say the Bush-Martinez Republicans, suggest public support for the sort of "comprehensive" reform that passed the Senate.

Other Republicans, not surprisingly, draw a different lesson. They claim the exit poll question ("Should most illegal immigrants working in the United States be: Offered a chance to apply for legal status; Deported to the country they came from?") was hopelessly skewed in favor of the "amnesty" side. They note that Hostettler's opponent, Democrat Brad Ellsworth, was also a security-first, anti-amnesty border hawk. And while Arizona voters rejected Hayworth and Graf, they overwhelmingly approved a series of ballot initiatives that will, among other things, restrict illegal immigrants' access to social services, ban them from winning punitive damages in civil lawsuits, and make English the official state language...

Immigration · Sat, 11/18/2006 - 18:02 · · Importance: 1