I’ve avoid discussing the Democratic Senate primary since resurrecting this blog last month for a couple of reasons: Both candidates give me pause. Miller tends to talk in platitudes and can easily be painted as a “typical liberal” that Virginians will reject, and Webb lacks personality and seems a poor campaigner. I also wanted to avoid the self-destructive rants occurring on other blogs. The end result will be a severely damaged candidate come the fall.

But Roz Helderman has a generally sympathetic article about Jim Webb’s campaign in The Washington Post today. Sympathetic because it begins and ends with positive statements about Webb, she highlights the fact that he is not “a typical candidate for a Democratic Party nomination,” writes several very positive images about the man and his career. She describes him as “thinking deeply” and that he has been “thinking about the issue [of affirmative action] for years.” Twice describing him as a thoughtful person is pretty powerful stuff.

But it’s the issue and his take on it that most interests me, not solely because it’s nuanced but because I find it thoughtful. (But I’m giving you an opinion here, not “reporting.”)

Webb comes to an unusual view among candidates in either major party: He supports affirmative action for blacks but otherwise thinks preferential job and education programs should be awarded based on economic conditions or eliminated altogether.

“I think it’s time to either open this thing up to poor white groups or just go back to a level playing field — while keeping an eye on African Americans,” said Webb, who is white. “I’m a strong supporter of affirmative action in its original intent, which is to help African Americans.”

…”He’s essentially articulated a position on affirmative action that almost no one articulates today,” said Robert D. Holsworth, a professor of government at Virginia Commonwealth University who has written a book on affirmative action. “It’s not an indefensible position, but it’s not a position that fits comfortably into the normal debate.”

Webb acknowledges his textured stand is not ready-made for a stump speech and hardly a “30-second sound bite.”

Besides using the “level playing field” theme I like, he deftly turns the issue to the needs of poorer white folks, who in today’s economy are increasingly disadvantaged due to lack of access to an education and the loss of manufacturing jobs. Framing the issue that way might mitigate the baser tendencies of some voters. Of course, as the article points out, it may just as easily hurt him with everybody. Certainly, a leader of the Virginia House Black Caucus isn’t happy.

“Webb is a Republican disguised as a Democrat,” said Del. Lionell Spruill Sr. (D-Chesapeake), a Miller supporter and one of seven members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus to endorse the former Fairfax Democratic Committee chairman. “Harris Miller and I go way back, and he has always been for affirmative action.”

But the black caucus loves affirmative action to the point of insisting that at least one member of the caucus staff, which in total now number two, be black.

Again, from Joe Klein’s book.

“The relationship [between pollsters and politicians] was much different from what it later it became,” the pollster Peter Hart told me. “When Lou Harris was polling for John F. Kennedy he once said, ‘Here are the numbers. Let me tell you what they mean.’ And Kennedy replied, ‘Just give me the numbers. I’ll figure them out myself.’”

Just after posting the item below, I started surfing my favorite blogs and started, as I often do, with Josh Marshall’s “Talking Point Memo.” And low and behold, he had an item that linked to this article that suggests the reason for our increasing partisanship is that we are segregating ourselves into politically like-minded communities.

Political and racial segregation are moving in opposite directions. John Logan at the Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research calculated the change in segregation between blacks and whites from 1980 to 2000 in the nation’s more than 3,100 counties. Even though the country remains deeply divided by race, U.S. counties on average became more integrated racially over those 20 years.

Politically, however, the nation rapidly divided. Using the same demographic calculation that measures geographic racial disparity, and substituting Republican and Democrat for black and white, political segregation in U.S. counties grew by 47 percent from 1976 to 2000.

The result is that voters on average are less likely today to live in a community that has an even mix of Republican and Democratic voters than at any time since World War II. They are less likely to live near someone with a different political point of view and are more likely to live in a political atmosphere either overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic.

“I don’t think we are at a really dangerous stage,” said Cass Sunstein, a professor of law at the University of Chicago and an author of books exploring issues facing democracy, “but if it’s a case that people really are pretty rigidly Republican or Democratic and that’s widespread, that’s not healthy. Our democracy is supposed to be one where people learn from one another and listen.”

Sunstein’s concern is rooted in more than 300 social science experiments over the past 40 years that have found a striking phenomenon that occurs when like-minded people cluster: They tend to become more extreme in their thinking. They polarize.

This research would predict that the increasing physical segregation of voters in the United States would result in a more polarized and partisan political culture. And that is exactly what is happening.

I’d need a lot more information before I buy this hypothesis. After all, even in a county that is 70-30, your immediate neighbors, those who you might socialize with the most, could be of either party. But the article makes for good reading. And a note at the end indicates the American-Statesman will have other articles about our polarized politics.

Today, the Washington Times has an article on the impact of redistricting on the budget fight. It’s a fair, if incomplete, look at the effect of this highly partisan process.

“A lot of the political middle has seemed to disappear from the legislature,” said Mark Rozell, a politics professor at George Mason University. “Now you have many more representatives that are really cause-oriented, and cause-oriented types are not very good at settling for half a loaf in order to get a deal.”

Stephen J. Farnsworth, a politics professor at the University of Mary Washington, said redistricting has created voting districts so homogeneous that primary elections determine which candidates will become part of the General Assembly.

Homogeneous voting districts force candidates to focus on advocating specific issues such as abortion or tax relief, instead of developing a consensus among disparate voters, he said.

“In most House districts, if you win the primary, you are going to Richmond,” Mr. Farnsworth said. “So instead of worrying about being in the moderate camp, all you really need to do is win your Democratic or Republican primary.

“The most ideological extreme — 10 percent of the electorate — are the ones who make the decisions in these one-sided contests,” he said.

Redistricting for both General Assembly districts and Congressional districts is done by the party in power at the time of the decennial census.

The only truly inane comment made in the article was, not surprisingly, by one of the most partisan hacks in the Virginia Assembly. And with the advent of computers, it’s getting down to a science that is almost infallible. Districts are carved out for incumbent protection, while the party in power maximizes its number of districts and minimizes their opponents’.

And House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith (R-Salem) knows that full well.

“[Delegates] have smaller districts, quicker elections, and I think we pay more attention to the feel of the voters,” [House Majority Leader Morgan] Griffith said. “It played out exactly how it was interpreted by the Founders. … The people in the House were supposed to be closer to the people and the Senate is closer to the centralized government.”

Most observers agree that it is more difficult than ever to oust incumbents.

The number of incumbents who lost in the general election fell to an average of 16 in the 1980s, 12 in the 1990s, six in 2000, and — if you control for redistricting and scandals — zero in 2002. We’ve reached the point where incumbents just can’t lose. Never before has there been such a preponderance of safe seats.

…We know from the 2000 presidential election results that Florida is, in terms of political sentiment, the most evenly divided state in the union; Bush won the state by only 500 votes. So if Florida’s congressional seats properly reflected the state’s politics, its 25-seat delegation would be divided roughly in half. Instead, it has 18 Republicans and only seven Democrats. That shows the power of redistricting built around the creation of safe seats — and the power of technology that allows very precise map-drawing. It also demonstrates the partisanship that is driving redistricting these days.

…The 2000 presidential vote in the Tampa-Orlando area was split down the middle. So its 12 House seats should be divided roughly six to six. Instead, there are 10 Republicans and two Democrats. Why? Because of very clever gerrymandering by a Republican-controlled legislature. The lines were drawn not only to keep high-probability Democratic voters, like minorities, bunched together in two districts with major urban populations in Tampa and Orlando, but also to carefully disperse probable Republican voters throughout the other 10 districts, giving them a 55-45 advantage in almost every one. A Democratic legislature, by the way, could have drawn lines to create exactly the opposite effect. That shows how manipulative redistricting can be. District lines are just a contrivance of somebody’s partisan inclinations.

It is widely agreed that Iowa’s redistricting process, while not perfect, is the most non-partisan in the country. The Legislative Service Bureau designs the districts, although its work must be approved by the state legislature. The bureau’s guidelines ensures that each House district be wholly in a senate district, among other requirements.

Iowa Code section 42.4, subsection 4, provides more specific guidance regarding the requirement to establish congressional and legislative districts compact in form. The Code describes a compact district as “… those which are square, rectangular, or hexagonal in shape to the extent permitted by natural or political boundaries.”68 The Code provides, however, that this compactness requirement is specifically made subservient to the requirements concerning population equality, respect for political subdivisions, and contiguousness.69

But Iowa goes further.

Chapter 42 [of state law] specifically forbids the use of political affiliation, previous election results, the addresses of incumbents, or any demographic information other than population in creating the redistricting proposals.

Iowa’s procedure came about in 1980 and has produced some startling scenarios.

[T]he Democratic-controlled legislature approved a plan in 1991 that left it vulnerable to competition; the Republicans now control both houses of the state legislature and four of five US House seats.

In 2001, the legislature did reject the Bureau’s first plan for congressional districts, but accepted the second plan even though it forced some Republican incumbents to run in new districts.

In the end, most state politicians as well as all Iowa voters seem satisfied.

Even those Congressmen and Iowa State Legislators who had to move from their districts, or chose to retire rather than run against other incumbents, support the process. They agree that it is best for the public.

Four out of Iowa’s five new congressional districts are fairly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, mirroring the state’s overall makeup. Only the 5th district, which runs down the state’s western border, has a solid majority of Republican vote

Other states are experimenting with a bi-partisan, rather than non partisan, approach.

Washington state … commissions consist of two Democrats and two Republicans chosen by the state legislature, and a non-voting fifth member picked by the four others; the panels go out of existence after each redistricting is complete. The redistricting plan must be favored by three of the voting commissioners and passed by the legislature.

In 1992, the state added a new district, the 9th, as a result of population gains. A Democrat won in 1992, and then the seat changed hands — and parties — in 1994 and again in 1996. Democrat Smith has held the seat since then. The commission drew the boundary lines, he said, with the intent of creating “a 50-50 district,” with an equal number of Democratic and Republican voters.

“A split is good public policy,” [a Democrat from Washington state’s 9th District. Rep. Adam] Smith said. “But it’s bad for me personally. Obviously, I would like to be guaranteed my seat. But redistricting that sets out to protect incumbents harms democracy. It polarizes people and it makes the district less competitive.”

The bottom line is more moderates.

Both Iowa and Washington have more than their share of congressional moderates. [Thirteen-term Iowa Republican moderate Jim] Leach, known for his independence, bucked President Bush on three energy-related votes…. [A Democrat from Iowa’s 3rd District Leonard] Boswell, meanwhile, broke from his party ranks to vote with the president on the same issue. Three of Iowa’s five representatives frequently vote independently, as do five of Washington’s nine representatives.

As much as I’d liked to win back the Virginia House and Senate and stick it to the likes of Morgan Griffith, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best thing for the state, the country and my children and grandchildren is to adopt a redistricting policy that helps elect moderates of both parties.

Democrats indeed have proposed such. Over the past four or five years, Democratic Dels. Brian Moran, Ken Plum, Kris Amundson and Sen. Creigh Deeds, among others, have proposed redistricting commissions. Of course, the Republican leadership, being in control, has no interest.

But at a time, when the electorate is getting weary of the incompetent partisanship, running as the party of bi-partisan or non-partisan redistricting has certain possibilities. The problem is voters don’t understand the problem, much less the solution. It would take an ongoing campaign to educate people and build support. Here is where Mike Anzilotti, Dave Guernsey, Jim Ukrop, Jimmy Hazel, “Dubby” Wynne and other Republicans who’ve complained about the right-wing of their party could help. They have the deep pockets and the connections to help raise even more money necessary to conduct an effective marketing campaign. But if we start now, work the media, the business community, voter groups, etc., we might be able to make it an issue the Democrats could run on in ’07 and ’09, in time to perhaps win control of either house. Of course, that would require Dems to promise that if they controlled both houses, they would pass legislation necessary to form a redistricting commission.

But how to start?

…Yet, even as Democrats try to change the fundamental rules, there are things they can do to try to win within existing ones. First they need to absorb and recognize what really happened in 2002 — that they were steamrollered, not by George W. Bush, but by the latest redistricting. This means they must prepare for real hand-to-hand combat by the time of the next redistricting. (It even could come earlier if any other states than Texas attempt to redraft redistricting in midstream; Texas Democrats showed themselves ready for the fight when they dodged the Republican seat-grab scheme last May by simply leaving the state.) They should study districts that show a history of Democratic presidential voting but that now have a Republican representative. More than 30 districts that Gore carried elected a Republican House member. Most of these are in the Northeast and in the suburbs of central cities elsewhere. Those seats should, with the right candidate, be rich targets for Democrats.

That’s what the DLC’s Blueprint magazine says the national Dems need to do. The Virginia Democrats have a similar starting point: Gov. Tim Kaine won nine House districts of Republican delegates who weren’t even challenged in ’05.

More on that later.

While at the G.A. this year, I saw this bill come through and thought it might be an example of Republican lawmakers doing good. Patrons:

• R. Lee Ware, Jr. (chief patron)
• David B. Albo
• Clifford L. Athey, Jr.
• Vincent F. Callahan, Jr.
• John A. Cosgrove
• William H. Fralin, Jr.
• Thomas D. Gear
• C. Todd Gilbert
• S. Chris Jones
• Terry G. Kilgore
• R. Steven Landes
• Daniel W. Marshall, III
• Harvey B. Morgan
• David A. Nutter
• John M. O’Bannon, III
• Thomas Davis Rust
• Robert J. Wittman
• Thomas C. Wright, Jr.

Apparently, Virginia is kind to folks who want to help conserve land and conserve their money, too.
Those tax benefits have fueled an explosion in easements, particularly in Virginia, which offers additional state tax credits. In 1995, Virginia landowners placed easements on fewer than 6,000 acres; last year, the figure exceeded 35,000.

But the IRS has other ideas. Seems it just another ploy to give developers a way to rob the treasury.

Meanwhile, the Democratic supervisor in Fairfax makes a fool of himself.

To support his argument that more homes could have been built on the property, [the developer] Turner introduced a letter signed by Fairfax County Supervisor Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) saying that Turner had the “right” to build 62 houses. But Hyland testified that Turner wrote the letter and that Hyland signed it without checking whether it was accurate.

Nice move, Gerry. I guess if business interests can write legisaltion, they surely can write letters for lawmakers signatures.

“When I talk about ethics, the response quite often is, ‘Yeah, he’s a crook, but he’s our crook, and isn’t everybody a crook out there?’

–Former Congressman Pete McCloskey (R-Calif.) who is running against incumbent in the 11th district

I just finished Joe Klein’s new book, Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized by People Who Think You’re Stupid. It basically criticizes consultants as cautious and destructive, while candidates are weak and lack leadership qualities. There’s much to like in this book. I will, from time to time, just quote from it.

Television demanded transparency and the rules of presidential politics were changed. The voters took control, selecting the candidates in a maddening chaos of state-by-state campaigns. By 1976, the process had been turned upside down: a politician most Americans never heard of –Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia–won the nomination to the bemusement of Democrats (and Ronald Reagan nearly unseated the sitting Republican president, Gerald Ford). Presidential politics was now a matter of self-promotion rather than smoke-filled selection by political experts. Over time, journalists found convenient, and often foolish, ways to quantify the anarchy: money raised, standing in the polls, endorsements. These, rather than a sober assessment of character and leadership ability, became the yardsticks for presidential plausibility.

Indeed they are.

The president has decided to again jump into the marriage amendment debate with an announcement of his support next week. No surprise here. He has been low-keyed about it since the election.

But critics said the only reason Bush and Frist are reviving the issue is for election-year pandering to conservative voters, who, polls show, have grown disaffected with the president for various reasons.

If critics indeed say that the Republicans have no problem, they need to say it better than this.

“They understand that they are in deep trouble and they need to do anything they can to appease their people, which is the right-wing base,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization. “This is an age-old political tactic, which is when everything is falling down around you — as it is for the administration — you go for your base.”

About half way through the first sentence, it needs editing.

“They understand that they are in deep trouble and they need to do anything they can to shore up support from the few people for whom the marriage amendment is most important. This is an age-old political tactic, which is when everything is falling down around you — as it is for the administration — you go for whatever support you can get.”

It does little good to characterize supporters of the amendment, much less call them “right-wing base.” But all in all, Solomonese’s comment is much better than this.

“Because polls show that the American people, including their core supporters, have completely rejected their failed agenda, President Bush and (Senate Majority Leader) Bill Frist are once again pushing a hate-filled constitutional amendment that attacks LGBT Americans,” [Democratic National Committee spokesman Damien] LaVera stated. LGBT is the acronym used for “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender” individuals.

“…I think the American people are tired of the politics of fear and division and are ready for leaders who will focus on the issues that matter most to them, like health care and the cost of gasoline,” LaVera said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure this hate-filled, divisive amendment does not pass.

It’s clear that the federal amendment hasn’t a chance of passing. Why enflame the debate by calling the opposition names? Time is on our side.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that most Americans do not support same-sex marriage but concluded that opposition has softened in the last two years. In 2004, 63 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage and 30 percent approved. In March, 51 percent opposed it and 39 percent supported it.

In 20 years, we will have won this debate; any state statutes will be repealed by the younger generation who by and large is much more tolerant of gay rights. Calling it “hate-filled” and “right-wing” solidifies the opposition. Call people names and you pretty much stop any reasoned debate and diminish your chances of either converting them or at the least getting them to be less passionate about the issue.. Even Bush is sensitive to overreaching.

The White House told activists that Monday’s speech would be in the Rose Garden, but after criticism that he was using such a symbolic site, the White House moved it to an office building next door.

A better response by opponents:

The administration should be focusing on other issues facing Americans, said Jay Smith Brown, director of communications for the Human Rights Campaign.

“With the high gas prices and the war in Iraq and the real challenges facing American families, [the fact that Bush is] now going to have spoken on this twice in the Rose Garden and not addressed any of the other challenges is a real disgrace,” Brown told Cybercast News Service.

Until he gets here.

But Brown asserted that “people will see this for what it is – a political attempt to bow to extremists.”

It’s not a bad idea to criticize outrageous charges.

In one North Carolina congressional district, for instance, Republican challenger Vernon Robinson has aired a radio ad attacking Democratic Rep. Brad Miller with mariachi music playing in the background: “Brad Miller supports gay marriage and sponsored a bill to let American homosexuals bring their foreign homosexual lovers to this country on a marriage visa. If Miller had his way, America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.”

Miller has a pretty good comeback.

Miller voted against the Marriage Protection Amendment in 2004, saying the matter should be left to the states. “The republic has survived pretty well for 220 years with marriage based on state law,” he said yesterday. “I don’t think we ought to amend the constitution every time a politician wants to campaign on an issue.” Miller said he supports North Carolina law banning same-sex marriage but is open to civil unions between gay partners.

If he indeed supports the state law, why not lead with “Mr. Robinson has deliberately lied about my position. I do not support gay marriage and he knows it.”

What might have made this response even better is something along the lines of:

“The republic has survived pretty well for 220 years with marriage based on state law. I don’t think we ought to amend the constitution every time a politician wants to campaign on an issue. More important is that we are criminalizing and ostracizing people for behavior that has no impact on our lives, while we are ignoring issues that really do matter to all of us.”

He might also consider acknowledging what may really be driving the opposition. While certainly there are many people — and most of the leaders of the gay marriage amendment push, in my opinion — who are simply bigoted and see the issue as a way to drive the people they need to the polls. But many may see marriage threatened, and gays are just a symbol of their concern about the moral direction of this country. It may be that what turns them off about gays, as unfair as it may be, is the stereotype they have in their heads: flamboyant sexuality. But they may also dislike as much flamboyant heterosexuality they see on MTV. While our society has become more sexually explicit, there are too many divorces, single-parent families and forgotten children. I wonder if Rep. Miller had framed and acknowledged their fears by following up his remarks with:

“I, too, am concerned about the institution of marriage and the breakdown of moral values. But we don’t strengthen heterosexual marriage by demonizing people whose commitment to each other is likely to be as strong as ours is to each other. I’d rather work to find ways to make marriage stronger in this country, to lower the divorce rate and to help preserve nurturing and safe environments for children. We cannot lose sight of the larger concerns we have in heterosexual marriages by looking for scapegoats.”

Meanwhile, we need to point out that the federal amendment, as well as Virginia’s, goes far beyond prohibiting gay marriages.

The Marriage Protection Amendment would ban same-sex marriages, but sponsors say it would allow state legislatures to approve civil unions with similar benefits for gay couples. In its entirety, it reads: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”

“[T]he legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.”? That’s dangerous and we need to point it out, but we shouldn’t shrink from saying that discriminating against people because of who they love is wrong and against American ideals. We just don’t gain anything by calling them extremists or denying larger concerns they may have. Acknowledging that there is something wrong with marriage in this country may be a way of diffusing the opposition to gay marriages.

This sends a chill through journalism.

One of the key precepts of good public communications is to not allow yourself to buy-in to someone else’s interpretations of the facts or false pretense.  Yes, “we’re all entitled to our own opinions but not our own facts” as the late Senator Patrick Daniel Moynihan once famously said.  But some facts conflict with others, and the glass can be half full or half empty.

Last night I watched Joe Scarborough.  That’s not something I usually do, but MSNBC got smart and realized that probably 3/4s of Keith Obermann’s fans were switching channels as soon as the obnoxious Rita Cosby came on, so they put Scarborough in her time slot following “Countdown.”  And even he’s beginning to think our president’s elevator doesn’t go to the top, so I’ve watched a few shows lately.

Last night, he ad three guests to talk about the immigration issue.  Here are four snippets of what Scarborough said.“Now, with 77 percent of Americans supporting a freeze or reduction in immigration levels, it’s no wonder the president’s plan is no wildly unpopular in middle America.

…. You [REP. HILDA SOLIS (D), CALIFORNIA] saw the Pew poll that says 40 percent of Americans want to keep immigration levels frozen, 37 percent actually want — actually, 40 percent want immigration levels decreased, 37 percent want to hold it steady. Only 17 percent support what the president’s talking about doing. Why is it that there’s such a disconnect between what you support and what the president supports and what middle America supports?

…You’ve [ PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST] been called just about everything that you can be called for taking a position that, again, according to this Pew poll, nearly 80 percent of Americans support. I just — I’ve got to underline this disconnect. Look, add up the numbers.  Seventeen percent of Americans are against your position and yet, you’ve been attacked for years …

… Certainly, you [BRAD BLAKEMAN, FORMER BUSH ADVISER] have to understand, as does Karl Rove and the White House, that if [the president] takes a position that 77 percent of Americans oppose, his poll numbers are going to go down.

First of all, most Americans don’t know that the president’s proposal would increase immigration.  Hell, I don’t know.  Mostly, what Scarborough was trying to say is that most Americans support the House of Representatives’ approach of “send them all home.”

Neither the congresswoman or the former Bush advisor challenged Scarborough. 

And one web site would give you all the ammunition you needed. 

"Allowing illegal immigrants who have jobs in the United States to apply for legal, temporary-worker status"
		Support	Oppose
	5/16-18/06	63	29	5	2
	4/4-5/06	69	25	3	2
						.
	"Trying to send as many illegal immigrants back to their home countries as possible"
	5/16-18/06	55	31	11	3
	4/4-5/06	57	31	7	5

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. May 16-18, 2006. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Would you favor or oppose allowing illegal immigrants who have done the following to stay and work in the United States: paid a fine, been in the U.S. for at least five years, paid any back taxes they owe, can speak English, and have no criminal record?"
		Favor	Oppose	Unsure
		%	%	%
	5/16-17/06	77	19	4

CBS News Poll. May 16-17, 2006. N=636 adults nationwide. MoE ± 4 (for all adults).

"Would you favor or oppose each of the following proposals? . . ."
		Favor	Oppose	Unsure
	"Creating a program that would allow illegal immigrants already living in the United States for a number of years to stay in this country and apply for U.S. citizenship if they had a job and paid back taxes"
	5/16-17/06	79	18	3

CNN Poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation. May 16-17, 2006. N=1,022 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Do you think illegal immigrants coming to this country today take jobs away from American citizens, or do they mostly take jobs Americans don’t want?"
		Take Jobs Away	Take Unwanted Jobs	Both (vol.)	Unsure
		%	%	%	%
	5/4-8/06	36	53	9	2
	4/6-9/06	34	53	11	2

CBS News/New York Times Poll. May 4-8, 2006. N=1,241 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).

Pick a poll and they prove that Americans favor allowing illegal immigrants to stay or, as the Fox polls demonstrate, they’re conflicted. 

Also, note that what the poll Scarborough was referring to can be framed differently:  A majority of American favor either keeping immigration levels the same or increasing them.  Which sounds a whole lot more like the President’s plan than the House’s.

The first thing out of my mouth would be, “Joe, you’re misreading those polls.  They show that most Americans think our immigration levels are about right or should be increased.  That means that they are opposed to the House’s plan to declare all illegal immigrants felons and send them back home,  And by the way, how would you do that and how much would it cost?  Should be raise taxes to do it?”

I love asking reporters questions in interviews.  They look dumbstruck.  Most are smart enough not to try to answer.  But the next thing to do is not fill the silence.  Let them ask the question again, which they would invariably do.  And then give the same answer.