Electioneering is off center

Here is my theory as to why the voter turnout for the April 11 election is expected to be so low.

The two leading candidates, Republicans Diane Harkey and Tom Harman, have made their illegal immigration positions the focus of half their campaigns.

And both have made their opponent’s illegal immigration record the focus of the other half.

Putting all your political eggs in the illegal immigration basket doesn’t work because most people are not as up in arms as these two politicians believe. They understand that illegal immigrants are now permanently woven into the fabric of the American economy, and though it bothers them ? as it bothers me ? that these immigrants are here without permission, rounding them all up and shipping them home is not a good action plan.

I believe that a majority of voters in the 35th Senate District understand that though it is wrong that there are people who are here without permission, as long as they are more or less contained to the schools, apartments and homes in one area, as they are on Costa Mesa’s Westside, they can go about their business.

By the way, don’t expect anyone to admit this.

If you don’t believe this, think of the surprising lack of support for heavy-handed illegal immigration policies by the American business community. Think of the business leaders who made their case en masse to the Costa Mesa City Council two days ago.

Think even of President Bush, who is not in favor of putting the squeeze on illegal immigrants. Bush supports a guest worker program.

Bush and the local business leaders have another agenda, namely that they must have these people to do the work that legal residents don’t want to do.

And let’s not forget that in a big way, illegal immigrants contribute huge dollars in sales taxes not just here in Newport-Mesa but all across the country.

Once you strip away the emotional aspect of letting people get away with this particular crime, the rational move is the president’s.

So Harkey and Harman can slug it out all they want trying to convince Joe Sixpack that each is the immigration tough guy, but all they are doing is reducing the pool of interested voters.

One Harkey piece I saw claimed that Harman broke the 11th Commandment by voting to spend $40,000 to fund a job center in Huntington Beach.

The headline reads, “Tom Harman spent $40,000 in Tax Dollars to Bring a Day Labor Center to his city.”

The funny part is, there are a lot of people who think that rather than being a goat for voting for the funds, they believe Harman did something good.

A lot of people.

Harman probably thinks he made a mistake by voting for the job center and that it will hurt him. But as I have investigated and reported here, Costa Mesa was better off with its Job Center in place.

The latest Harman piece I received about Harkey is the same waste of paper. It sensationalizes the illegal immigration issue and insults the intelligence of the reader and never tells the reader what to do with the information.

It bothers me to think that trees died to produce this garbage.

Now I refer to the letter in the Daily Pilot from Supervisors Chris Norby and Jim Silva (“Financial cost of federal border failure,” Thursday). The point they make is that the money the county is spending to support illegal immigrants is the result of a failure by the federal government to secure our borders and that we should be compensated by the feds as a result.

I made the same point here earlier this year.

But unfortunately, their letter only made the same point without telling us exactly what they planned to do about trying to get federal compensation.

Do they plan to lobby Washington in person? Hire a lobbyist? Team up with other cities to lobby? Meet with a congressman or senator to introduce legislation?

We may never know because they did not tell us. We got nothing ? no plan, just more blather from a couple of politicians. One thing they did not recommend in their letter is to initiate a mass deportation program that includes illegal immigration sweeps.

These two guys may not like the presence of illegal immigration but they’re smart enough to know that the American economy needs this labor to stay competitive ? and it needs it more than ever before.

Before Silva and Norby spout off again, they should include a course of action and then hold themselves accountable for the follow-through, reporting to us on their progress.

That’s called accountability. They can leave the blathering to me.

Illegal immigration as an emotional, political hot button has been around for decades and other politicians besides Harkey and Harman have tried to capitalize on its sensationalism but without great success.

The two greatest failures that come to mind are Pat Buchanan’s failed presidential bid when he all but made illegal immigration the cause of all the nation’s problems.

The other is last year’s resounding defeat of Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist in his campaign against John Campbell. Gilchrist came in third, failing even to beat a Democrat.

The lesson: Those who choose this one issue as the focus of their campaigns are risking a lot and are forgetting these valuable history lessons.

I won’t be voting for Harkey or Harman, whom I see as one-dimensional, shallow, boring politicians who are jumping on the illegal immigration bandwagon because it is the issue du jour.

What I will do between now and April 11 is find out more about the third choice on the ballot, Larry Caballero, a Democrat. If I like what I find, I will vote for him. If I don’t, I am going to skip this election, the first time I have done so since I began voting more than 30 years ago.

Finally, here is some unsolicited advice to Harkey and Harman: If you want to win next month, move quickly to the center of this issue. The guy you want to replace did just that and he is now serving us in Washington.