Haley Barbour, 2012, and the Need for a Focus on Illegal Immigration

Haley Barbour has been under fire for his stance on immigration after Time Magazine published a Justice Department filing showing that Barbour lobbied for amnesty.  The filings show that Barbour was part of a lobbying team that was commissioned by the Mexican embassy to lobby for a pathway to citizenship for illegals in 2001. 

Here are some of the details about the amnesty provisions that he was seeking.

At the time, Mexico was seeking an extension of a provision that allowed undocumented immigrants living in the United States to receive legal visas or green cards without returning to their country of origin, provided they pay an additional fine. In practice, the provision generally helped out undocumented family members of legal immigrants or undocumented immigrants who were eligible for visas based upon certain job skills. Without the provision in place, undocumented immigrants who received legal papers had to return to their country of origin, for three or 10 years, before returning to the U.S. The Congressional Research Service estimated that an extension would put benefit about 300,000 undocumented immigrants.

At first, I was hesitant to excogitate any further on this issue because it appeared to be yet another hatchet job on Haley Barbour from the liberal media.  Any conservative must always be circumspect of any liberal exposé about a conservative deviating from conservatism.  After all, they certainly have no penchant for our views.

Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence: The Technocrat and the Intrepid Ideological Conservative

Any conservative who is flirting with the idea of supporting Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels for President should read this Politico puff piece on the potential presidential aspirant.  Jonathan Martin of Politico, in a piece titled, "Mitch Daniels: Heartthrob of the Elites", cites elitist columnists and publications that heap praise upon Mitch Daniels for his "gold-plated resume".  After discerning the type of pundits who admire Mitch Daniels, I am more certain than ever that he is not the man with the temerity, grit, or passion to battle the left.  Here is the opening of the article:

If pundits and columnists represented the GOP base, Mitch Daniels would be the odds-on favorite for the presidential nomination in 2012.
The Indiana governor has been showered with favorable coverage from political thinkers and analysts in recent months, most of which heaped praise on his thoughtful and principled approach to governing while celebrating his serious yet down-to-earth mien.
“Of all the Republicans talking about the deficit these days, Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, has arguably the most credibility,” claimed The New York Times’ David Leonhardt in an Indianapolis-datelined economics column recently. (emphasis added)

If these supercilious politicos hold Daniels in such high regard, I can't imagine any supposition that he would serve as the conservative warrior to lead our nation back to constitutional government.  Perhaps it is his perfect resume, which titillates David Broder, that assures the political elite not be leery of Daniels.  As Jonathan Martin continues,

As David Broder wrote last fall: “[H]is record of accomplishment is dazzling.”
He went to all the right schools (Bachelors, with honors, at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School and a law degree, with honors, from Georgetown), learned at the knee of a political Wise Man (veteran Sen. Richard Lugar) headed up a think tank (Hudson Institute), was a top executive at a Fortune 500 company (Eli Lilly), and for two terms has been a governor, where, as the mandarins’ formulation goes, all the real policy innovations take place.

I'll let that paragraph speak for itself.  Next, he cites a quote from George Will regarding an interview Daniels had with the Economist.

“He is a Republican who had never heard of 9/12, Glenn Beck’s tea-party group, before The Economist mentioned it to him.” 

Citing his gold-plated resume, The Economist observed that in each of his jobs Daniels “brought a decidedly dorky passion: a reverence for restraint and efficacy.”

The article closes by quoting acclamatory statements from such 'impeccable conservatives' as Charles Krauthammer and Weekly Standard writers.