Drivers licenses for illegal immigrants - Obama should stay the hell away from this wedge issue

[rodeodance]

Forum Name General Discussion: Primaries
Topic subject Drivers licenses for illegal immigrants - Obama should stay the hell away from this wedge issue
Topic URL http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4247834#4247834
4247834, Drivers licenses for illegal immigrants - Obama should stay the hell away from this wedge issue
Posted by Seabiscuit on Mon Jan-28-08 12:37 PM

This I believe is not a good move for Obama. I've seen what the repukes can do with the selling of fear and the spectre of illegal immigration in my own district. Here is an excerpt from a San Francisco Chronicle article discussing Obama's tactical move to make inroads with latino voters in California/Colorado etc. I personally think all of our candidates need to stay away from this because in the GE that's all we'll hear other than the real issues.

"Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. It's a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It's also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama's stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in California, where driver's licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis."

"Democratic pollsters Stan Greenberg and James Carville issued a direct warning on the driver's license issue in an analysis last month designed to guide Democrats through the treacherous immigration quagmire.
"The findings about driver's licenses are particularly notable," they said. Two-thirds of surveyed voters oppose them, the pollsters found, and the safety argument fails to dent the widespread conviction that granting a driver's license rewards illegal behavior."


There is a lot more in the article and its quite interesting.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/28/MNH1UL57Q.DTL