Allan Hoffenblum: Arnold should emulate George Bush on immigration

The OC Register offers us "Governor losing Hispanic support" (link), referring to California's own Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It features Orange County GOP Hispanic outreach chief Manny Padilla and KCAL political commentator Allan Hoffenblum discussing where they think Arnold went wrong.

As noted here in the past (link, link), Hoffenblum can be counted on to provide advice that's not just wrong, it's un-American as well:

Hoffenblum points to President George W. Bush as something of a model for reaching out to Hispanics: high-level Hispanic appointments, a good relationship with Mexican President Vicente Fox, a proposal to let more legal immigrants into the country and condemnation of a citizen border patrol, the Minuteman Project. Schwarzenegger praised the Minutemen, who try to slow illegal immigration.

Obviously, this blog has an entirely different view of Our Leader and his open border policies, so I won't bother repeating myself. Some of these canards have already been answered in the recent post "Bush, Big Business to join forces, oppose wishes of American public" anyway.

And:

The complaints [from Padilla and other "Hispanics"] include comments against illegal immigrants Schwarzenegger has made in recent months, the lack of high- level appointments of Hispanics, the lack of diplomacy with Mexico and his veto of a measure that would allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

On the one hand we're told by apologists that all those millions of illegal aliens will assimilate, and on the other we're told that the only way to win their support is to reach out to the country that they've supposedly left behind?

Would we win Arnold's support if we reached out to Austria? Or, does Arnold consider himself an American, and isn't that the point of view that we should be encouraging rather than encouraging anti- and un-American ideas like corporate pluralism and ethnic nationalism?

The other issues have been dealt with here in depth, including a whole category just about driver's licenses for illegal aliens.

I also almost live-blogged the KFI interview with Arnold, and I don't recall him making any "comments against illegal immigrants".

If Arnold wants to gain "Hispanic" support, perhaps he should appeal to them as Americans and not as Mexicans as the two above seem to want.

Comments

How about all of these politicians worrying about the American citizens instead of all the Hispandering. I was glad to hear Arnold speak out in support of the Minutemen, if only other politicians would join him. The longer the border remains open, the more Hispanics in here, the more the politicians will be hispandering, instead of looking out for their legal constituients.

Needless to say, it's far from clear that insisting immigration law be enforced is going to result in a net loss of votes, which is what any (intelligent) candidate should be concerned about; as I recall, roughly half of Hispanics in Arizona supported Proposition 200 there.

Can't find an email for you on the blog:

You may be interested in this open letter to Tamar Jacoby:

http://www.claremont.org/localliberty/archives/003494.html

She's testifying today before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the McCain-Kennedy guest worker bill.