House GOP’s immigration strategy no “magic bullet’

“Earlier this year Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) argued that illegal immigration would play a bigger role in the election than the war in Iraq. People know what they want to do about illegal immigration, he reasoned, but most Americans find the war more confounding without a clear strategy in mind to turn it around.

But Tuesday Gutknecht lost his reelection bid, and that loss, as well as those of many other so-called border-enforcement-first Republicans around the country, punctuated their party’s failed election strategy, casting doubt on their handling of what was supposed to be a winning campaign issue and demonstrating that issues like Iraq and President Bush’s low popularity in the polls trumped the polarizing illegal immigration issue even at the southern border.”

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