The difference between liberal and conservative perceptions on illegal immigration

As I was writing the preceding post, I realized how differently liberals and conservatives perceive the illegal immigration problem. The policy differences are well known, of course, but I was struck by the thought that they don’t even categorize the issue the same way.

For liberals, illegal immigration is a social services and human rights issue.

For conservatives, illegal immigration is a foreign policy & crime issue.

The categories themselves define the differences in the positions of the two sides.

A mild disagreement with See-Dub’s ass-chewing

See-Dubya’s been on fire lately, with a series of great posts ranging from nailing the Ventura County Star for deleting critical comments, to the behind-the-scenes dirty laundry of lawyers for Guantanamo detainees. In his latest post he chastizes anti-Huckabites for saying that they’ll jump the GOP ship if Huckabee wins the primaries.

He notes that when Rudy was top dog, Rudy’s supporters were lecturing social conservatives about the evils of fracturing the party and allowing the Democrats to win. Certainly the 2006 elections showed the dangers of following that path (though in the longer term it may do the GOP some good). Now, he says, it is hypocritical of those same people to threaten to leave the party if Huckabee gets the nomination.

I don’t usually disagree with See-Dub, but I think he’s being a little unfair here. To grossly simplify, we are measuring a socially liberal (libertine?) conservative against a socially conservative liberal. But their alignment with conservative principles is not equal. That is, if you look at the ranking of the top 10 issues for conservatives (per a poll by Human Events), you find that social issues are at the bottom (hey, where’s crime on this list?).

1. Illegal immigration — 86%
2. War on terrorism — 80%
3. Federal spending – 65%
4. Supreme Court and other judicial appointments — 64%
5. Flat tax/tax cuts — 61%
6. Size of government — 61%
7. Iraq — 55%
8. Social Security — 45%
9. Entitlement programs — 38%
10. Abortion — 36%

The core concerns, the economy/taxes/spending and foreign policy/immigration, are all ranked much higher than the only true “social issue” appearing on the list (which is partly the fault of the poll, I’ll admit). I would submit that advocating conservative unity makes sense only if a candidate is strong on a majority of the most important issues. Otherwise you’re not really voting for a conservative or a conservative platform. Thus, one could easily take the position of the Giuliani supporters without being a hypocrite (though it would help if Giuliani himself was better aligned with conservative principles).

My Ranking of the Candidates: I’m not a big fan of either of these gentlemen as candidates for President. And though I like most of what Fred Thompson says, I prefer candidates to have had experience as a governor – the management experience in that position is much more relevant to the Presidency than the deal-cutting experience of Congressmen. Also, Thompson’s campaign has underwhelmed me.

So Romney is my very weak favorite at this point. Here’s how I’d rank the candidates:

• Romney
• Hunter
• McCain
• Thompson
• Giuliani
• Huckabee
• Tancredo
• Paul

McCain and Thompson are roughly equal in my view, while Hunter has the advantage of being relatively unscrutinized by the press and his opponents.