That means you too, Rahm Emanuel.
Headline from New York's election results last night:
And in Virginia, here's the headline:
Okay, so, in Virginia, immigration demagoguing did not help Republicans, and in NY, despite the quotes from party insiders justifying their abandonment of Spitzer as saving the day and a voter quote cherry picked by the NYT editors to suggest Democratic voter "concern," there's really no evidence that immigration demagoguing moved votes to the GOP. At all.
The NYT article reminds me of how Rahm Emanuel took credit for 2006 after his original DCCC short list did lousy, the people on his late changing list did better after he added some of our Blue America candidates to shore up his stats, after he spent the major part of the cycle telling everyone to STFU about Iraq. Then after the election, he took credit for the "thumpin'," when it all happened in spite of him, not because of him.
You're a fucking genius, there, Rahm.
Sorry, but until I see real data that says voters in NY were actually moved to vote based on immigration or opposition to Spitzer's plan, I'll remain of the opinion, confirmed by results all over and from the past, that the scary brown people code language moves votes among the racist fringe and not among Democrats, nor among liberal/progressives. These are not votes we're ever going to get and trying to pretend we should want them is political malpractice and moral suicide.
So, New York Democrats, what was all the "Spitzer is KILLING us!" stuff really about, if not Joe Bruno's successful attempt to get the longs knives out within the state party against Spitzer, with love from Andrew Cuomo?
I'm with Jane: I'm not getting it either, or rather, maybe I do get it, and I don't really like the obvious answer.
UPDATE: It's always pleasant to see the vituperative fury of the closet racists here in the comments whenever I expose Lou Dobbs' ignorant idiocy and call out his bigotry. Welcome, Stormfront readers and Little Green Footballs Cheeto eaters! Don't let the brown folks touch your food at Denny's!
[photo by rauchdickson]
Pachacutec blogs at Firedoglake.