Behind the Arizona Immigration Law: GOP Game to Swipe the November Election

[YBR31]

Source: Greg Palast

Don't be fooled. The way the media plays the story, it was a wave of racist, anti-immigrant hysteria that moved Arizona Republicans to pass a sick little law, signed last week, requiring every person in the state to carry papers proving they are US citizens. I don't buy it. Anti-Hispanic hysteria has always been as much a part of Arizona as the Saguaro cactus and excessive air-conditioning.

What's new here is not the politicians' fear of a xenophobic "Teabag" uprising. What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, US citizens all, who are daring to vote -- and daring to vote Democratic by more than two-to-one. Unless this demographic locomotive is halted, Arizona Republicans know their party will soon be electoral toast. Or, if you like, tortillas.

In 2008, working for Rolling Stone with civil rights attorney Bobby Kennedy, our team flew to Arizona to investigate what smelled like an electoral pogrom against Chicano voters ... directed by one Jan Brewer.Brewer, then Secretary of State, had organized a racially loaded purge of the voter rolls that would have made Katherine Harris blush. Beginning after the 2004 election, under Brewer's command, no less than 100,000 voters, overwhelmingly Hispanics, were blocked from registering to vote. In 2005, the first year of the Great Brown-Out, one in three Phoenix residents found their registration applications rejected.

But that's the point, isn't it? Not to stop non-citizens from entering Arizona -- after all, who else would care for the country club lawn? -- but to harass folks of the wrong color: Democratic blue.



Read more: http://www.gregpalast.com/behind-the-arizona-immigration-lawgop-game-to-swipe-the-november-election/

[ladjf]

1. The "Southern Strategy" worked for the Republicans in the past.

But, I believe that their "race gambit" will fail this time around.

[dkf]

2. Yeah that must be why a majority of Hispanics in az support the law.

I guess it has nothing to do with the drug murders going on down there either.

[pezDispenser]

3. Where did y ou see this?

Certainly this is anecdotal, but I know quiet a few Hispanics and none of them support this bill. Hell, nobody I've talked to supports this bill, regardless of race.

[atreides1]

5. Was that from a poll?

When the pollsters say that certain percentage is either in favor or against something, it's just the percentage of people who responded to the poll.

So while 70% of Arizonans support this law, that would be only 70% of those that were asked.

[happygoluckytoyou]

6. RELATED STORY: 70% AZ favor the new law.... LOL and 30% of population is HISPANIC... do the math !!!

But there's little doubt it will be used disproportionately against Hispanics, who are 30 percent of the state's population.
Favored by 70% of the population

[No Elephants]

9. If you are referring to Rasmussen, they did not even ask respondents if they were Hispanic.

:wtf:

[No Elephants]

7. Do you have a link that supports that claim?

[lonestarnot]

4. Of course. There is always some kind of theft going on as the underlying cause of any pug's

motivation.

[denverbill]

8. No. I like Greg Palast a lot but I don't buy this article.

The teabaggers are driving Republickers into corners. They can't afford to alienate them or they risk losing both the primary and the general election, but if they cow-tow to the teabaggers they alienate the sane 75% of the population. They chose to cow-tow and hope people wouldn't notice. I'm quite sure they aren't real happy with the results so far.

This decimated hispanic support for Republickers and the small bump they got amongst non-Hispanics is going to disappear as stories start to appear about good, honest Hispanic-American citizens being tossed in the slammer. I predict an enormous Hispanic voter turnout in November. They might all bring their birth certificates to the polls, but I bet they turn out.

[havocmom]

10. Consider the Jeb factor. Jeb Bush comes out against the law, not surprisingly

and this gives him the opportunity to champion civil rights. Florida has a huge block of Hispanic voters (Cuban more than Mexican dissent) and Florida is always a hinge for presidential elections.

Flatten turnout in places where big Hispanic populations traditionally vote DEM by making it hard for big registration drives, this law WILL intimidate many people, and rev up other blocks, it's a win win for bush III.