WP: Attack Ads You'll Be Seeing
By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, August 8, 2007; Page A15
Here's an emerging line of attack you can expect to hear more of in the 2008 congressional campaigns -- especially if you live near a vulnerable Democratic incumbent: Democrats vote to give welfare benefits to illegal aliens. Or, even better: Democrats vote to take benefits away from deserving senior citizens to pay for welfare for illegal aliens.
Ugly? Absolutely. Devastating? So Republicans hope. True? No.
Bashing Democrats on immigration -- accusing them of doing everything but carrying illegals' luggage across the border -- is a GOP mainstay. But the accusations that Republicans started to peddle last week reached a new low in dishonest nativism. The first salvo involved the House version of the measure to extend the children's health insurance plan, SCHIP.
"What we do is take, at the cost of seniors who get . . . choices of their own health-care plans, we take it away," former speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) claimed during the House debate. "We wipe it out, and we give it to people who are illegal aliens." "That bill, if it becomes law, would take $197 billion out of the Medicare trust fund, from our seniors, to give to illegal aliens," charged Rep. Ron Lewis (R-Ky.)....
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Not that those inconvenient details matter much. "Target Dems Go the Extra Mile for Illegal Immigrants," crowed the House Republicans' campaign arm. It sent out individualized releases accusing vulnerable Democrats of voting "to give illegal immigrants government healthcare benefits." You can see the 30-second ads coming....
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.... this debate isn't really about making good use of federal funds. It's about using immigration as a weapon against at-risk Democrats -- and assuming voters won't bother to learn the truth.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/07/AR2007080701287.html?hpid=opinionsbox1