Only One Candidate
is Right on the Two Most Important Issues
By Ann Coulter
AnnCoulter.com
In the upcoming presidential election, two
issues are more important than any others:
repealing Obamacare and halting illegal
immigration. If we fail at either one, the
country will be changed permanently.
Taxes can be raised and lowered. Regulations can
be removed (though they rarely are). Attorneys
general and Cabinet members can be fired. Laws
can be repealed. Even Supreme Court justices
eventually die.
But capitulate on illegal immigration, and the
entire country will have the electorate of
California. There will be no turning back.
Similarly, if Obamacare isn't repealed in the
next few years, it never will be.
America will begin its ineluctable descent into
becoming a worthless Western European country,
with rotten health care, no money for defense
and ever-increasing federal taxes to support the
nanny state.
So let's consider which of the Republican
candidates are most likely to succeed at these
objectives.
In order to allow Democrats to indignantly
denounce Republicans who said Obamacare would
add to the deficit, the bill was structured so
that no goodies get paid out immediately. That
way, when the Congressional Budget Office was
asked to determine if Obamacare was "revenue
neutral" over its first 10 years, government
accountants were looking at a bill that
collected taxes for 10 years, but only
distributed treats in the later years.
Starting at year 11, those accountants will be
in for a big surprise when the government starts
paying out Obamacare benefits without
interruption.
Because of this accounting fraud, Obamacare can
still be repealed. But as soon as all Americans
have been thrown off their employer-provided
insurance plans and are forced to start
depending on the government for health care,
Republicans will never be able to repeal it.
The vast complex of unionized government workers
managing our health care from Washington will
fight to keep their jobs (for more on this
topic, see the Department of Education), voters
will want their "free" government treats (for
more on this topic, see Medicare, Medicaid and
Social Security) -- and even if they don't,
there won't be a private insurance market for
them to go back to (for more on this topic, see
IRS rules favoring employer-provided health
care).
The only way to stop Obamacare is to beat Obama
in 2012, and repeal it before the health care
Leviathan is born.
Otherwise, starting in 2016, Republicans will
run for office promising only to improve
Obamacare. Newt Gingrich will be calling plans
to reform it "right-wing social engineering."
All current Republican presidential candidates
say they will overturn Obamacare. The question
for Republican primary voters should be: Who is
most likely to win?
2012 is not a year for a wild card. It's not a
year for any candidate who will end up being the
issue, instead of making Obama the issue. It's
not a year for one wing of the Republican Party
to be making a point with another wing. (And
there are no Rockefeller Republicans left,
anyway.) It's not a year to be gambling that
America will vote for its first woman president,
or that the country is ready for a nut-bar
libertarian.
Running against an incumbent president in a
make-or-break election, Republicans need a
candidate with a track record of winning
elections with voters similar to the entire
American electorate.
Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich
have never had to win votes beyond small,
majority-Republican congressional districts.
Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Rick
Santorum have won statewide elections, but
Huntsman and Perry ran in extremely red states
that don't resemble the American electorate.
Only Romney and Santorum have won a statewide
election in a blue state, making them our
surest-bets in a general election.
But if Santorum wins, we lose on the second most
important issue -- illegal immigration -- and
he'll be the last Republican ever to win a
general election in America.
Just as Americans ought to be able to learn the
perils of a welfare state by looking at Greece,
we ought to be able to learn the perils of
illegal immigration by looking at California.
Massive legal and illegal immigration has
already so changed the California electorate
that no Republican can be elected statewide
anymore. Not so long ago, this was a state that
produced great Republican governors and senators
like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, S.I. Hayakawa
and Pete Wilson.
If even Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, two
bright, attractive, successful female business
executives -- one pro-life and one pro-choice --
can't win a statewide election in California
spending millions of their own dollars in the
middle of the 2010 Republican sweep, it's buenas
noches, muchachos.
And yet, almost all Republican presidential
candidates support some form of amnesty for
illegals in order to appeal to the business
lobby.
Among the most effective measures against
illegal immigration is E-Verify, the Homeland
Security program that gives employers the
ability to instantly confirm that their
employees' Social Security numbers are
legitimate. It is more than 99 percent accurate,
and no employee is denied a job without an
opportunity to challenge the records.
Although wildly popular with Americans --
including Hispanic Americans -- the business
lobby hates E-Verify. Employers like hiring
non-Americans because they can pay illegal
aliens less and ignore state and federal
employment laws.
Any candidate who opposes E-Verify is not
serious about illegal immigration. If anything,
E-Verify ought to be made mandatory to get a
job, to get welfare and to vote.
Kowtowing to business (while pretending to
kowtow to Hispanics), Paul, Perry and Santorum
oppose E-Verify. As a senator, Rick Santorum
voted against even the voluntary use of
E-Verify.
Jon Huntsman claims to support E-Verify, but
also wants to give illegals amnesty as soon as
the border is sealed -- as determined by someone
other than us. Also, he gave driver's
identification cards to illegal aliens in Utah.
(You'd think a guy no one has ever heard of
would be more careful about ID cards.)
Following his latest guru, Helen Krieble, Newt
Gingrich is for amnesty, combined with
second-class status for illegals. Instead of
giving illegal aliens green cards, Newt proposes
giving them "red cards" so they can stay, take
American jobs, have children, receive welfare
benefits, attend public schools -- and
eventually be granted amnesty. The Republican
primaries will be over before most voters
realize what Newt's "red card" scheme entails.
Only Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney aren't
trying to sneak through amnesty for illegal
aliens. Both support E-Verify.
Numbers USA, one of the leading groups opposed
to our current insane immigration policies,
gives Republican presidential candidates the
following grades on immigration: Paul, F;
Gingrich, D-minus; Huntsman, D-minus; Santorum,
D-minus; Perry, D; Romney, C-minus; and
Bachmann, B-minus.
And that was before Romney said last week that
Obama's drunk-driving, illegal alien uncle
should be deported!
That leaves us with Romney and Bachmann as the
candidates with the strongest, most conservative
positions on illegal immigration. As wonderful
as Michele Bachmann is, 2012 isn't the year to
be trying to make a congresswoman the first
woman president.
Two Little Indians sitting in the sun; one was
just a congresswoman and then there was one.
COPYRIGHT 2011