How the immigrant card stopped working for Arizona's Republicans

[cal04]

Andrew Gumbel in Tucson

Randy Graf thought 2006 would be his big year to run for Congress. As a conservative Republican from southern Arizona, his biggest issue was immigration, and his attitude was unbendingly tough: militarising the border, rounding up and deporting illegal immigrants and slapping fines on employers who hired workers without proper work-permit documents.

He had reason to think the mood of his electorate, and the country as a whole, was swinging his way. Since September 11, after all, Republican politicians have done very well on "scare" issues such as terrorism and border security. Immigration was topic A in Washington for much of the first part of this year, and a bill even passed the House of Representatives calling for the criminalisation of the 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrants estimated to be working in the country.

But Mr Graf was wrong. The Republicans have lost their magic touch with the electorate rapidly over the past year; the scare tactics do not appear to working any more and public attitudes on immigration have matured, to the point where hardline attitudes like Mr Graf's are, if anything, an embarrassment.

And so the Republicans look set to lose a seat in Arizona's eighth congressional district - covering roughly half of the city of Tucson and the borderlands to the south and east - after holding it for the past 22 years.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1951260.ece

[muntrv]

1. J.D. Hayworth needs to go, too.

[Ms. Clio]

2. this is wonderful news

thanks so much for posting it.

[Greeby]

3. Well, the endorsement from David Duke certainly didn't help nt