Republicans hope to pump life into immigration issue

WASHINGTON -- As N.C. Republicans look for ways to connect with unsatisfied voters this fall, they're hoping to hit all the right chords with their attempts to crack down on illegal immigration.

The subject prompted a zealous public outcry last year but has since receded, and some N.C. candidates think they can still turn anti-illegal immigration sentiment into votes if they revive it on the campaign trail.

Immigration enforcement has been featured in campaign ads by Sen. Elizabeth Dole; stump speeches by gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte; and press events by Rep. Sue Myrick of Charlotte and other members of Congress.

"Nationally it doesn't poll that high, but it's still the No. 1 issue that people stop me about in the grocery store and other places where I am and say, 'Please don't give up on the border,' " Myrick said after a recent news conference to call for swift completion of a fence on the Mexican border. "I still hear it all the time in my district."

The candidates are pushing the issue without the same strategy from the top of the ticket. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., courts the Hispanic vote and has taken a more moderate approach to tackling the influx of people who enter the country without proper documentation.

He co-sponsored the immigration compromise -- billed as "amnesty" by those who thought it was too lenient on illegal immigrants already in the country -- which produced such heated public animosity last year that lawmakers were forced to fold on the matter.

Even so, Democrats are seen as more vulnerable on the issue because they've generally been more willing to give legal status to illegal immigrants. Their push for "comprehensive" reform has thwarted narrower attempts at altering the current system.

Other issues at fore

What was then a chart-busting issue has been replaced by more direct pocketbook issues such as staggering gas prices and lingering sentiment over the personal and financial cost of war.

"This seemed to be the issue that gay marriage had been in the past," said Mark Gibney, a political science professor at UNC-Asheville, referring to a proven motivator to get conservatives to the polls. "One of the more remarkable things is this issue has been quieted."

There's evidence that's true even in North Carolina.

A year ago, 27 percent of likely state voters said immigration was the issue that mattered most to them, second only to the Iraq war, with 31 percent, according to a survey by Public Policy Polling of Raleigh.

But last month, the pollsters found that only 5 percent of the 660 likely N.C. voters surveyed thought immigration was the most important issue to them.

"$4.50-a-gallon gas does a lot to focus the mind," said Michael Franc, vice president for government relations at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

All in the framing

Franc said immigration will still play well for Republicans if it's framed in a way that explains how people's personal budget crunches are tied to the economic costs associated with taking in immigrants.

In North Carolina, emphasizing immigration enforcement doesn't carry the same risks that it would for candidates in areas such as Florida and Texas, where immigrants are so established that they have coalesced into a viable voting bloc.

"It still plays [here] because it's still new," said Jess George, associate director of the Latin American Coalition, a Hispanic Services Agency in Charlotte.

Though North Carolina has one of the fastest rates of growth among immigrants, they still make up only 7 percent of the population -- about 623,000 of the state's 9 million residents, according to a 2007 survey by the Census Bureau.

Harry Taylor, a Democrat from Charlotte who's challenging Myrick this fall, said he rarely hears about matters such as erecting 670 miles of fence and vehicle barriers along the southern border.

TV ad turned him off

Tony Asion says he has been a conservative Republican most of his life but decided he wouldn't vote for Dole this year after seeing her television ad, which talks about getting tough on illegal immigration.

"They're putting all Latinos in one group. ... Everyone is getting lumped together," said Asion, executive director of El Pueblo in Raleigh, a statewide nonprofit Latino advocacy group. "They're creating animosity and hatred in the community for Latinos, as a side note to them getting more powerful."