According to polls, immigration is a much more important issue among Republican voters than among Democrats. That's especially true in early voting states such as Iowa and So. Carolina, where sizable pockets of illegal immigrants have settled in the last decade.
The intensity of Repugnant resentment towards illegals, has come as a surprise to Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister. As an abortion-detesting, evolution-denying homophobe, Huckabee is fast winning the devotion of his party's Christianists, who seem to confuse the office of president with that of preacher or priest. But Huckabee has one glaring flaw in an otherwise perfect Repugnant doctrinal resume, he has shown (gasp) some compassion towards illegal immigrants.
As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee supported legislation that would have made undocumented college students eligible for college scholarships and in-state tuition discounts. Huckabee said "he wouldn't hold children responsible for something their parents did," like crossing the border illegally.
For that modest bit of pragmatism, Huckabee is being hammered by Mitt Romney, who lost to him in Iowa. Though he was relatively moderate on immigration as governor of Massachusetts, Romney now presents himself as the leader who bravely "stood up and vetoed in-state tuition for illegal aliens, and opposed driver's licenses for illegals."
Polls notwithstanding, Huckabee's position is more Biblically correct. "We welcome the stranger because the Savior himself was not welcomed in mainstream society," said Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics. "The whole teaching of 'no room at the inn' was about someone poor and marginalized and pushed off to a stable."
The more thoughtful question is then this, what would Jesus do - and would He be a Republican?
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