I have a piece on the homepage this afternoon about Scott Walker’s controversial (read: “controversial”) immigration remarks. But since I focused on the backlash from the right, I was not able to note this gem of leftwing analysis — from Salon, of course:
But by taking a position against legal immigration, he’s just placed himself to the right of Ted Cruz on this issue. He’s out in Ben Carson land. Not to mention that he’s obliterated the last tattered shreds of a conservative argument to appeal to Hispanic and other ethnic groups: the idea that illegal immigration is unfair to legal immigrants who’ve been “waiting in line” to come to this country. Walker wants to close down the line altogether. Only the most hardcore neo-Confederates like Sessions want to go that far.
Three notes:
First, all of the italics are original. (So, you know, “Ted Cruz” = TED CRUZ!?!?)
Second, all of the facts and insinuations are wrong. As Ramesh points out, Scott Walker has not taken a position “against legal immigration”; in fact, his spokeswoman has said just the opposite. And backing unrestricted legal immigration is hardly the only position acceptable to minority voters; as I note in my piece, it’s minorities (Hispanics among them) who are most adversely affected by high levels of legal immigration — and many of them know it.
Third, re: “Only the most hardcore neo-Confederates like [Alabama senator Jeff] Sessions want to go that far”: Yes — like those notorious neo-Confederates Harry Reid, Barbara Jordan, and Coretta Scott King.