However, he admits one thing you usually don't hear from Republican immigration shills—Pete Wilson's Prop 187 was a huge electoral success among the white voters, still the most important voting block in California.
It's amazing how much some Republicans don't want to win, if it means they win with white votes. Here's what he has to say, with added links:
I've watched California politics take unimaginable twists and turns over the years. And now, ever so quietly and subtly, I sense that possibly another sea-change may come about. For all the flak Pete Wilson took for promoting Proposition 187, and for how it alienated the Latino community, his push resonated with a very large and frightened WASP middle class. The campaign empowered him to come from behind and win a decisive victory. Not pretty, but it worked for him. As a trustee of Chapman University in the middle of increasingly Latino Orange County, and also spending time with CEOs and community leaders, I can sense a deep and intensely growing concern and fear that illegal immigrants are completely overwhelming our state infrastructure.The daily drumbeat of proposed higher taxes being needed from the average hardworking citizen to support medical services and K-12 education for a flood of illegals is enraging the average voter. It makes little difference whether this view is accurate or not. The perception is driving a strong reaction and our widespread talk shows are focused on the issue daily.
As was widely reported not long ago, Arnold invited the "Minutemen" from Arizona to come to California to guard our borders this summer because the federal government, as many Californians see it, won't do the job. This issue is one of those occasional, unique circumstances that can, and may, so suck all the air out of the other political discourse in California that budgets, education and infrastructure may simply fade to the back pages while withering intensity goes into the front-page "stop the illegals" debate.
If this scenario takes traction, as it appears it will, the issue will be the only one that drives the next statewide election. I can, of course, see Arnold winning in a landslide in that intellectually impoverished event. Paralyzed legislative Democrats in Sacramento will have no one to blame but themselves once again. Yet while the result may be great for Republicans, California will still be a state where nothing gets done to balance the budget, control spending, plan water policy and fix K-12 education. State of Confusion | Will fear of illegal immigration save Schwarzenegger from political oblivion?
