Democratic defensiveness, immigration reform edition

From Wikipedia, Fear: "Facial expression of fear from Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals"

The National Journal has a group of "Political Insiders" that they interview on various topics. Just for fun, I'm listing their Democratic Insiders at the end of this post. It seems to be a safely Establishment lot, for the most part.

They report on a poll on immigration in James Barnes, Democrats Divided On Politics Of Immigration Lawsuit 08/05/2010:

Democratic operatives are sharply divided on the political fallout from the intervention by Department of Justice lawsuit against the controversial Arizona immigration law, according to this week's National Journal Political Insiders Poll.

When the Political Insiders were asked, "on balance" whether they thought "the Justice Department's legal challenge to Arizona's immigration law helps or hurts your party in the midterm elections," 49 percent of the 103 Democratic Insiders who responded to the survey said it would [hurt their] party on Nov. 2. At the same time, 42 percent said it would help the party and another 10 percent volunteered equivocal responses, saying it would both help and hurt, wouldn't have an impact, or would be a neutral factor in the elections.

Conversely, of the 97 GOP Insiders who responded this week, an overwhelming 94 percent said that it would help their party. A tiny four percent said the issue would hurt and two percent gave equivocal responses.

The Republican sample are confident that It's Good For The Republicans, as it usually is in Beltway conventional wisdom. Essentially half the Dems agreed with the Republicans, and another 10% didn't want to say either way. Lovely.

This is yet another symptom of the chronic defensive crouch of the Beltway Democrats. The Republicans go over the cliff with xenophobia and racism and are determined to run as many Latino voters as possible into the arms of the Democrats. And the Democrats are trembling in fear, worrying that the ferocious Republicans are going to roll over them.

Is there just something weird in the water in Washington? It's just hard to fathom how they think like this.

In the detailed results from the link below, we get comments from the Democrats like this, the following presumably from Democrats:

"Swings are not with us on this issue. Hispanics are frustrated by the inaction on reform. Not so good."

"The Democrats need to spend August talking about the economy and jobs; instead, now we have a month of talking about immigration."

Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson must be rolling in their graves to see their Party trembling in fear like this - in the face of a golden opportunity!

From James Barnes and Peter Bell, Political Insiders Poll 08/07/2010, the National Journal's...

Democratic Political Insiders Jill Alper, John Anzalone, Brad Bannon, Dave Beattie, Andy Bechhoefer, Cornell Belcher, Matt Bennett, Mitchell W. Berger, Mike Berman, Stephanie Bosh, Paul Brathwaite, Donna Brazile, Mark Brewer, Ed Bruley, George Bruno, Deb Callahan, Bonnie Campbell, Bill Carrick, Guy Cecil, Martin J. Chavez, Tony Coelho, Larry Cohen, Jerry Crawford, Stephanie Cutter, Jeff Danielson, Peter Daou, Howard Dean, Jim Demers, Tad Devine, David Di Martino, Debbie Dingell, Monica Dixon, Patrick Dorton, Pat Dujakovich, Anita Dunn, Jeff Eller, Steve Elmendorf, Carter Eskew, Eric Eve, Vic Fazio, Peter Fenn, Scott Ferson, Jim Fleischmann, Tina Flournoy, Don Foley, Don Fowler, Vincent Frillici, Gina Glantz, Niles Godes, John Michael Gonzalez, Joe Grandmaison, Anna Greenberg, Stan Greenberg, Pat Griffin, Larry Grisolano, Michael Gronstal, Lisa Grove, Marcia Hale, Jill Hanauer, Dick Harpootlian, Paul Harstad, Laura Hartigan, Mike Henry, Karen Hicks, Leo Hindery Jr., Harold Ickes, Marcus Jadotte, John Jameson, Steve Jarding, Jonathon Jones, Jim Jordan, Gale Kaufman, Lisa Kountoupes, Kam Kuwata, Celinda Lake, David Lang, Penny Lee, Chris Lehane, Jeff Link, Bill Lynch, Bob Maloney, Steve Marchand, Jim Margolis, Paul Maslin, Keith Mason, Terry McAuliffe, Susan McCue, Gerald McEntee, Tom McMahon, Phil McNamara, David Medina, Mark Mellman, John Merrigan, Steve Murphy, Janet Napolitano, David Nassar, Marcia Nichols, John Norris, Tom Ochs, Tom O'Donnell, Scott Parven, Jeffrey Peck, Debora Pignatelli, Tony Podesta, Jack Quinn, Larry Rasky, Bruce Reed, Mame Reiley, Steve Ricchetti, Will Robinson, Steve Rosenthal, David Rudd, John Ryan, Michael Sargeant, Wendy Sherman, Terry Shumaker, Sean Sinclair, Phil Singer, Erik Smith, Doug Sosnik, Greg Speed, Darry Sragow, Ken Strasma, Sarah Swisher, Jeffrey Trammell, Ed Turlington, Rick Wiener, Bridgette Williams, James Williams, JoDee Winterhof, Brian Wolff, Jon Youngdahl, and Jim Zogby.

Tags: democratic party