New York Times Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported from the California town of Turlock that the GOP has (once again) doomed itself in upcoming congressional elections because of (once again) immigration: “Republicans, Seats at Risk, Fight for ‘Dreamers.’”
Stolberg zeroed in on embattled Republican Rep. Jeff Denham of California for her front-page Saturday story, with the paper’s standard politically correct language.
In all of his campaigns for the House, Representative Jeff Denham has never seen anything quite like the rolling circus that trails him through his sprawling district in California’s Central Valley -- the “Dump Denham” signs, the papier-mâché effigies, the shouting.
He says it does not faze him, but there is nothing like the political gallows to focus the mind of an endangered politician, and Mr. Denham, a Republican, is responding in a way that touches almost everybody here in California farm country: He is leading the charge on Capitol Hill to pressure Speaker Paul D. Ryan to hold a vote on legislation to protect the young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers.
"Dreamers." Somehow this is terminology isn't totally slanted? In a cloying sentence, Stolberg warns the GOP not to “harm the young Dreamers.”
A vote this summer to help undocumented immigrants could demoralize President Trump’s most ardent supporters and depress Republican turnout in November. A vote to toughen immigration rules and harm the young Dreamers would further energize Democratic voters. To avoid such a showdown, the speaker has scheduled a two-hour meeting on immigration with his rank and file when lawmakers return to Washington next week.
That “so” suggests Stolberg’s disapproval of conservative policy:
From Miami to the Rocky Mountain West to Texas and to California, the petition’s signatories form a renegade band that is not only making life difficult for Mr. Ryan but also standing up to the conservative Freedom Caucus, which so often dictates policy in the House. Of the 23 Republicans on the petition, 11 are in districts that are clearly in play. Another five have announced their retirements or have already left the House.
....
Here in California’s 10th Congressional District, a rich agricultural region where the roads are lined with dairy farms and orderly rows of almond trees, it is difficult to overestimate the effect that immigration policy has on daily life. The voices of Mr. Denham’s constituents make that much clear.
More double standards in labeling: While the word “Dreamers” comes without quotation marks, “conservative” complaints of “amnesty” get the scare quotes.
Mr. Denham, 50, an Air Force veteran who owns a plastics company and a small almond farm, said the status of Dreamers “is personal for me.” His father-in-law, a onetime farmworker from Mexico, came to the United States on a now-defunct guest worker program and ultimately became a citizen as a result of a 1986 immigration law that conservatives still deride as “amnesty.” Mr. Denham says he helped with the paperwork.
More labeling disparity:
Along with a Democrat, Representative Pete Aguilar of California, Mr. Hurd has sponsored legislation that would offer the Dreamers a path to citizenship while also beefing up border security. The bill, which has Mr. Denham’s backing, is one of four measures -- including a hard-line measure offered by the Freedom Caucus -- that would be taken up by the House if the petition is successful.
While many Republicans are railing against so-called sanctuary cities, Mr. Denham and the others are walking a fine line, trying to appease conservatives while putting just enough distance between themselves and the president to attract support from independents and crossover Democrats.
