It is among immigrant bashers. But they won't vote for Obama anyway.

In the general. Yes. Look at the polls.

Obama may have supported Spitzer's program but look where he is in the polls. Is his candidacy doomed? Yes. For anyone to become President of the United States, the candidate has to appeal to a broad spectrum of people. This is a big country with a wide variety of opinions. Any Democrat who runs too far to the left is doomed. We have had only one Democrat as President with two terms since FDR...Bill Clinton.

Why are Democrats like Hillary afraid to take a stand. Republicans stake out positions and run on them. They don't seem to be afraid to offend. Hillary seems to be unable to stake out a position if she thinks it might cost her a vote or two.

I guess if you have seen polls that say 50% of all voters refuse to vote for you under any circumstances, you are really reluctant to offend anybody else.

Does this mean his candidacy is doomed?

Yep. Americans don't want to give driver's licenses to criminals. What next? Driver's licenses to child predators?

Yep. Americans don't want to give driver's licenses to criminals. What next? Driver's licenses to child predators?

Well, fairs fair: lawyers get drivers licenses.

"Yep. Americans don't want to give driver's licenses to criminals."

Well, then, we're going to have to change a lot of motor vehicle laws to get in line with that. It's not the law anywhere I know of.

It's like this: Today the United States is California circa 1994 - the year of Proposition 187.

Let's try couching it in these terms:

Your car has been hit by a vehicle driving by an illegal immigrant. Which would you prefer: That the driver have no documentation whatever, thus making it impossible to track them down and dramatically delaying your insurance claim? Or that they have a driver's license and you can at least verify their identity and address?

Guess which one most rational people would pick.

The problem with this issue, like so many others, is that it requires a thoughtful explanation for it make sense. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to get this type of answer across to voters.

The MSM only shows 5 second clips (which are often just video followed by their even shorter summarization of what was said). It's also very easy for the opposition to take a portion of a more involved answer out of context and spin it against you. Plus the braying masses of middle American voters are (comparatively speaking) racist, provincial xenophobes who can't see beyond their absolutist, knee-jerk reactions.

It never occurs to them that states like California or New York that have millions of illegal immigrants between them probably know better than, say, Kansas, on how best to handle situations like this.

Allowing illegal immigrants to get drivers licenses (and then making some other form of ID the proof of citizenship) would help improve safety on the roads and freeways and save countless lives every year.

Furthermore, if the state police were charged with arresting and deporting illegal aliens they happened to pull over, many of these otherwise routine traffic stops would turn into high speed chases that would end up getting lots of people hurt and killed.

These middle Americans can't see past their own absolutism and prejudices to recognize (or care about) the lives that would be lost over their knee-jerk policies. And that pretty much summarizes American politics under the Republicans over the last decade.

her tap dance was indefensible. she should have known the question would be asked, and had her position ready to declare. instead she conducted a mini policy debate--with herself.

but I agree that it is "hard" (not "catastrophic") for her or any Democratic candidate to unequivocally support either side of this issue. Dodd's point against the program, that a driver's license is a privilege, not a right, is the only resonant one right now, even in New York. Lots of citizens, including many Democrats, seem to be saying they don't want non-citizens to be issued IDs that many consider, however erroneously, to be proof of residency and even citizenship.

But then lots of Democrats truly want to address the problem of safety on the roads, for undocumented workers and everyone else, and they want to help them "come out of the shadows".

I agree with Clinton that Spitzer is really trying to grapple with the problem in the wake of Congress' failure to enact immigration reform. But I think his approach has been muddled, contradictory, and dismissive of real concerns.

I think this underscores how much people don't understand what the problem was with her answer on the question. It was her equivocating and evasiveness. As I recall, only Dodd raised his hand when asked if any candidate opposed the plan.

I've seen a zillion post on this stupid issue, and not a single comment on the archives question.

Hold on! Obama's defense of the program was nothing approaching straight-forward. He stated he thought it was the "right idea" to a Yes/No question. He would've equivocated just as much as Clinton had he actually devoted more time and thought to the answer.

Read the transcript here.

It's not the position, it's the lack of one (and I mean on anything specific) that could be catastrophic. Why equivocate, why not just answer the question straightforwardly?

"Guess which one most rational people would pick."

That's why I compared the USA in 2007 to California in 1994. Hysteria drove Proposition 187. Hysteria is driving the immigration debate nationally today. HRC's problem was that she understood the rational argument (and agreed with it) but in the end paid heed to the hysteria (by backing away from endorsing it). That political calculation, I think, is what might be fate provided it becomes a real talking point in the media.

By the way, the right answer to that question: "State and local governments are trying to manage a problem which the federal government created through a lack of real immigration reform. If the federal government did its job it would render the drivers license issue moot. State government shouldn't have been put in the position to have to deal with this in the first place." Then you launch into a general bit about immigration reform and managing the borders and maybe even swing that back to Iraq (if we weren't in Iraq the national guard could help manage the borders).

Okay, something of an irony here: Clinton's explanation of the Spitzer proposal was pretty cogent (it topped any other commentary on the topic I've heard). And I can understand her not wanting to get squarely behind it, but not wanting to squish it demagogically, either. Yet there's no doubt she came off wishy-washy/slick as a result, and I think it hurt her more than any other moment in the debate.

On the other hand, she didn't come off nearly as badly in her discussion of her Iran vote -- but there, I think, the reality is she IS being slick: trying to placate the Democratic base while positioning herself for what she perceives (I believe wrongly) to be the "center" of the electorate (it's more like the center of the DC commentariat).

So, she's being genuinely slick, and getting labelled that way, but not for the right reasons. Like I say, irony.

(Reminds of something that happened at a college party: Some guy made a boorish, gross remark. A young woman thought it was some other guy speaking, and slapped this wrong guy -- which knocked over his drink, onto the guy who actually said it)

Obama straightforwardly said he supported Spitzer's program. Does this mean his candidacy is doomed?

Hard to tell since it was already doomed by Obama's arrogantly flacid campaign persona.

His "value proposition" is different than hers; and his constituency is somewhat different as well, even within the Democratic party. I'm not endorsing Clinton's answer. But what works politically isn't just the sum of individual stances on particular issues.

I live in NY, and I think Spitzer won't be re-elected because of it. And I like Spitzer.

So, yes, Obama's candidacy is doomed.

Well, it is a difficult choice. On the one hand there's plenty of good reasons to give illegal immigrants a drivers license. But on the other, it waters down the ID quality of the driver's license, and it just perpetuates our immigration problem - incremental upgrades in the illegal alien's quality of life will undermine any chance for comprehensive immigration reform.

Tweedledee and Tweedledum are both about equally corrupt on illegal infiltration and the Latin vote.

http://grades.betterimmigration.com/testgrades.php3?District=NY&VIPID=896
http://grades.betterimmigration.com/testgrades.php3?District=IL&VIPID=1162

"...Hillary Clinton's tap dance ...."

Kevin Drum, ever the useful idiot when it comes to Republican spin points, just as he slavishly and repetitively regurgitated the 2004 "Kerry is a waffler" meme.

Kevin:

Remember yesterday's post about Sommerby? Here's where you need to internalize his voice. Of course you understand that any tiny little thing Clinton says that provides laugh-fest, brow-furrow, she's-CRAZZZZY talk show fodder would be catastrophic to her campaign.

Of course you understand that it would not be catastrophic for anyone else.

The press loves to laugh at Democrats who are winning. There is nothing controversial or confusing about that fact. And you've lost another opportunity to make the point that the playing field is tilted.

While you guys debate the illegals getting drivers licenses, here's a preview of what's to come. In a future debate during the general election, the following question will be asked:

Mrs. Clinton would you as President sign or veto a bill that prohibited any federal welfare monies from going to any state or local welfare agency that refused to verify that those seeking welfare benefits are in the country legally?

What do you think her answer would be to that question?

It is kind of a trick question, because the answer is complicated. The central problem is that we have decided politically that a National ID Is Bad, but we need it anyway. So we abuse two documents that were never intended to be National IDs: Social Security cards and driver's licenses.

A driver's license was intended to be the permit to drive a certain class of vehicle on public roads, and a Social Security card was intended to give you a reference number for your SS benefits. Both of them were never meant to be secure, and have given us no end of grief.

===Hold on! Obama's defense of the program was nothing approaching straight-forward. He stated he thought it was the "right idea" to a Yes/No question. He would've equivocated just as much as Clinton had he actually devoted more time and thought to the answer.

He voted for just such a bill in 2003 while in the Illinois Senate and he was very clear in 2004 when he supported it during a Democratic Debate for US Senate. There is no question about his position.

almost 75% of people in New York oppose this program, the same number oppose it in a poll by CNN. This particular method is HIGHLY unpopular as it stands now. I don't know how salient it is, but supporters are in an overwhelming minority.

So taking more than 10 seconds to explain your ideas on a subject is "tap dancing"? Oh I forgot - it was a lightning round. And Obamas 'it sounds like the right idea' was hardly a ringing, unequivocal answer.

But yes, Obama's campaign is doomed. Rudy's new joke will be 'Obama wants to give Osama bin Laden a drivers license'.

I might add that although I love Chris Dodd, his 'driving is a privilege' speech was really annoying. Driving is a necessity for many people who want to earn a living, no matter how they got to this country. My personal opinion is that the driver's license should be that and only that, and not used as an all purpose ID or proof of citizenship.

Kevin: Obama straightforwardly said he supported Spitzer's program. Does this mean his candidacy is doomed?

Yes. If Obama were to somehow become the Dem nominee, I think that answer would doom him. A lot of voters don't want illegal immigrants to be given legal status. Most of these voters will see drivers licenses as effectively doing just that.

Waffling isn't pretty, but in this case, I think Hillary was smart to waffle.

@Parody Al: I remember when I was taking driver's ed in my high school in Illinois. This would have been the spring of 1990.

He once reminded us that we would be out on the road with all kinds of nuts: murderers, adulterers, child molestors, and (gasp!) homosexuals. (As a gay kid, this was upsetting, but I didn't have any guts to say anything at the time.)

So it looks like we'll give a driver's license to just about anyone!

A better answer would have been to reverse-frame it: "I'm opposed to allowing illegal immigrants to drive without a license!"

Also:
"...her tap dance was indefensible..."

First time I read that, I thought it said her lap dance...That really would have been indefensible.

Why does she have to have a prepared answer to a question that has no national relevance? Driver's licenses are administered by states, not the federal govt, so as president, she would have nothing to do with it. Expecting the presidential candidates to have prepared answers to all the local issues is unreasonable, in my opinion.

This is a very emotional issue for voters and could make a difference in the election. Polls show a significant majotity of voters take a hard line on granting any rights to illegal imigrants. The Democratic candidate needs to be very careful with her(his) position on this.

Flip-flopping on the issue like Hillary is at least arguably worse than taking the minority position. The driver's licenses can't be used on planes and say they are for driving only, so everyone knows they are for undocumented immigrants.

The real question is why someone who is undocumented would bother to get one. Seems like it doesn't do them a heck of a lot of good.

It's not the position, it's the lack of one (and I mean on anything specific) that could be catastrophic. Why equivocate, why not just answer the question straightforwardly?

If you don't equivocate, you can't reasonably hope both sides of the issue will project their preferences onto your opaque statements.

"Which would you prefer: That the driver have no documentation whatever...Or that they have a driver's license and you can at least verify their identity and address?"

Verify their identity and address?!? BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA

Hillary obviously supports the idea but not Spitzer's particular proposal. If she had said anything in the negative about the proposal the headlines would have read "Hillary opposes driver's licenses for immigrants." She is smart. The lesson is that if your position is more refined than a simple yes or no on specific proposals or legislation, dodge the question otherwise you'll be misrepresented in the press.

So people would prefer to drive on the same highway with recent immigrants who have never learned to drive according to American rules?

If driving practices in Central America are actually better than in the U.S., correct me. I know many Americans have never quite learned to drive according to American rules.

But it seems that requiring driver's ed and licenses for immigrants of whatever status would help reduce accidents. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It was my feeling that when Clinton stood up for Spitzer and insisted he was doing something because his state needed it, she did not lose any support. Even if Spitzer's position is not necessarily popular, Clinton's defending it made her look attractive as a person.

Apparently Desmodus's state simply gives away drivers licenses at bakeries. Every other state I've lived in (5 at last count) demanded quite a bit of documentation and proof of identity before granting a driver's license.

HC's support of Spitzer's program assumed, in an obvious way, that illegal immigration would continue to be tolerated. That was the mistake she made (and realized she made - hence her hedge later).

Given:
- 5 million illegal immigrants reside in the US
- They drive
- Driving without a license has negative consequences (like the delayed insurance claims mentioned above).

One response is: "Holy shit! 5 million illegal immigrants? We need to do something about that!"

Another is: "Holy shit! My insurance payment could be delayed? We need to do something about that!"

You're never going to solve the problem of illegal immigration unless and until you crack down on those persons and companies who are hiring them illegally. What I said last night bears repeating: As long as those substandard jobs are pointedly offered to the desperately poor residing south of the border, they will come, regardless of your 700-mile-long walls and Nat'l Guard deployments.

Unless and until you address those who exploit the plight of the desperately poor, your efforts will be no more successful than trying to control the number of flies in your yard by catching individual insects and removing their wings with tweezers, instead of just removing the dogshit.

Verify their identity and address?!? BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA
Posted by: Desmodus

Indeed. That's hilarious. The Mexican Consular IDs do verify that applicants have a pulse and are present on US soil but that's about the extent of it.

'"Employers are very quick to raise the specter of a labor shortage, but often it's another way of saying they can't find the workers they want at the price they're paying.They are unwilling to meet the price signal the market is sending, so they seek help in the form of a spigot like immigration." - " Jared Bernstein, senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Hillary's blaming of the Bush administration disingenuous? In regard to immigration reform, Bush was on Hillary's side and (for the most part) against his own party. I'm not quite sure he can be blamed for "failing to pass immigration reform." What exactly did Hillary want Bush to do?

I thought Obama's response was wishy washy. He essentially said the same thing she did.

Obama is always wishy washy. Won't take difficult votes in the Senate that might come back to haunt him. He is a true coward while at least Hillary will take the vote and the aftermath, good or bad.

Edwards is just running as whatever he thinks will win. He goes from one of the more conservative candidates in '04 to an angry screaming populist now and I don't buy it for an instant.

I'm not quite sure he can be blamed for "failing to pass immigration reform." What exactly did Hillary want Bush to do?

Well, for starters, how about twisting some arms the way he did on SCHIP? Many in his own party were inclined to vote for the bill and to override the veto, but the White House made an effort to get legislators into the party fold.

Immigration reform? Not so much.

Posted by: bob on October 31, 2007 at 6:14 PM
The real question is why someone who is undocumented would bother to get one. Seems like it doesn't do them a heck of a lot of good.
..............................................
In California, state law requires impounding of vehicles driven by unlicensed drivers...and thats usually a 30-day impound. So, at least in California, a drivers license would do them a heck of a lot of good.

But somehow, it just seems wrong for a Government Agency to issue an official permit to someone who is in the country illegally.

All European residents in the Western Hemisphere are here illegally.

At the end of WW I, Europe had a huge refugee problem. The solution for most European countries was to make them illegal aliens, as they were considered undesirable. This began the short slog to WW II and the enacting of final solutions to eliminate such undesirables form the general population. European Americans are now on that course with our brothers and sisters from the Western Hemisphere, who have made the migration North.

When I was a child, anti-Soviet propaganda pointed out that in communist nations there was no freedom of movement, unlike in the Free World. Like most propaganda, it was a lie. The US wants to restrict the movement of people just as much as Stalin did, and will use similar tactics to remove undesirables as he did. This inhumane policy will be used against the descendents of European immigrants someday, just as Juarez used Maximillian's law to execute the former French installed emperor.

I live in a rural area with many farmworkers whom I suspect are illegal immigrants.

They buy clunker cars that probably can't pass smog, don't register them, and walk away from them when they're in an accident.

They have to, basically, because they are prevented from getting drivers' licenses and so can't register automobiles anyway.

Let me tell you, I don't feel safer on the road because they can't get licenses.

And I really can't understand the hysteria of "they could use them to get on airplanes!!" I betcha any terrorists wanting to bring down an airplane can get access to a false ID. Most of the farmworkers I know can't afford a flight to anywhere.

This is all Republican't Talking Point (tm) smoke, not that that means it won't be effective in the 9/11 Presidential 9/11 Election of 9/11 2008.

Post Title: CATASTROPHIC.

Is that a cat joke?