Pundits have spilt a lot of ink trying to convince themselves that opposing illegal immigration is a losing political issue. Those include: Fred Barnes, Linda Chavez, Tamar Jacoby, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Arlen Specter, and Michael Barone.

Now, we turn to the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne ("Test Run For 2008", link). Note, of course, that the Washington Post explicitly supports illegal immigration:

In Massachusetts's 5th Congressional District -- a collection of mill towns and affluent and blue-collar suburbs north of Boston -- the surprise issue was illegal immigration. [Jim Ogonowski] made it the centerpiece of an anti-Washington campaign. An Ogonowski news release, for example, accused Tsongas of being "committed to giving cheap college to illegals at taxpayer expense."

...[Niki Tsongas], a community college dean, favored granting in-state tuition rates to the children of undocumented immigrants. In Ogonowski's translation of that, Tsongas believed that "Massachusetts taxpayers should foot the bill for the college tuition of the children of illegals."

Republicans think the immigration issue helped Ogonowski, so the country may be in for a lot more of this sort of thing next year. "Everywhere we went, people wanted to talk about immigration," said Matt Wylie, Ogonowski's general consultant. "It was just coming up over and over again."

[...SCHIP may have helped her win...]

Earlier, Chris Cillizza of "The Fix" wrote (link):

[Ogonowski] also found fertile ground by calling for a crackdown on illegal immigration and decrying Tsongas' support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants as amnesty.