More bad news over the weekend for the president’s proposal for an illegal-alien amnesty. Rep. Chris Cannon, the White House point man on immigration in the House, was forced into a primary in Saturday’s Republican state convention in Utah, a “shocker” of a result, according to the Deseret News. The way it works there is that any candidate selected by more than 60 percent of the delegates automatically gets the nomination — otherwise there’s a primary for the top-two vote-getters. Former state rep Matt Throckmorton kept Cannon below the 60 percent threshhold and will now face the incumbent in the June 22 primary. In fact, in the first of two rounds, Cannon was supported by less than half the delegates in a three-way race.
Amnesty was central to the contest; as the Salt Lake Tribune wrote, “Challenger Throckmorton has made immigration his No. 1 issue,” though the liberal paper felt the need to continue the sentence thus: “and some fear that the primary could degenerate into a below-the-belt brawl with racist undertones.” Obviously, there’s no other way to discuss immigration policy.