From the WaPo guest editorial "A Line Has Been Drawn in the Arizona Sand" by Tamar Jacoby:

Arizona voters sent a signal to Washington on Nov. 2. That front-line border state is feeling besieged and, not surprisingly, sharply divided over illegal immigration. Though its booming economy is dependent on foreign labor, the costs of the unauthorized influx from Mexico -- smuggler shootouts, bankrupt hospitals, a mounting toll of deaths in the desert -- have risen to the point that many residents just can't take it anymore. So on Election Day, Arizonans voted decisively -- 56 percent to 44 percent -- in favor of a state ballot initiative to bar illegal immigrants from receiving government services...

I was deeply disappointed in the outcome: I'd been working for months to help defeat Proposition 200, both in-state and out. But having spent a good part of the fall listening to Arizonans talk about immigration, I worry that the message they sent is being misinterpreted. Far from a simple anti-immigrant backlash, their vote for the proposition seemed more like a cry for help -- a plea for federal action -- and that could be heartening news for immigration reformers...

...But it wasn't Arizonans who turned the state into a national battleground. That was the work of Washington-based anti-immigration activists looking for an easy electoral victory...

...The restrictionist coalition set out to stop this momentum [of various "guest worker"/amnesty plans] with what it thought would be an overwhelming landslide telegraphing voters' generalized hostility toward immigrants...

... The nativist activists designed the measure to have maximum public appeal, and it worked...

...Unlike in California 10 years ago, a broad bipartisan coalition came together to oppose the measure: Democrats and Republicans, business and labor, grass-roots ethnic activists [no doubt funded by the Ford Foundation --LW] and state employees including firefighters and health care workers...

[...it goes on and on...]

...Concerned as they are, most voters aren't reflexively anti-immigrant...

If I had photoshop skills, this post would probably be accompanied by a picture of a sincere Tamar Jacoby listening intently to what Arizonans were telling her. Dressed in her business suit she'd be a little out of place in the 130 degree Phoenix heat. The crowd to whom she was listening would be passing the hat to buy her a ticket back to D.C. But, since I don't have those graphic skills, you're just going to have to imagine it. Or, alternatively, you can send an email to ombudsman@washpost.com