Cross the Border

The McHenryCountyBlog last week posted an eye-popping statistic ...

... the Illinois Auditor General's study of Rod Blagojevich’s All Kids taxpayer-subsidized health care program says 75% of 71,665 children on the program were "undocumented immigrants."
Illegal Aliens Compose 75% of All Kids Taxpayer Subsidized Health Care Program

The facts & figures cited, including the 75% number, were all from a recent Daily Herald story. Of course if someone -- ie your LakeCountyEye -- had been paying any attention, your LakeCountyEye would have smelled something fishy. As these things go, IllinoisReason (the blogosphere's binary opposite to the McHenryCountyBlog) was paying attention and called out the McHenryCountyBlog ...

Former state legislator Cal Skinner posted a rather sensational article over at Ill Review — mirrored at his own McHenry County Blog — falsely claiming a recent audit showed "Illegal Aliens Compose 75% of "All Kids" Taxpayer Subsidized Health Care Program" (his title). He's wrong. And he even dragged the Daily Herald into it despite the fact they got the story correct.
Ill Review's Skinner Gets Facts Wrong on Undocumented Immigrants

IllinoisReason was charging McHenryCountyBlog with selectively misquoting the Daily Herald. The Herald story does contain an important -- and omitted -- caveat ...

As of June 30, 2009, there were 71,665 children enrolled, 75 percent of which - 54,073 - were classified as undocumented immigrants, auditors found, though they cautioned mistakes in state All Kids data suggest the number is inflated.
Audit rips All Kids health care, cites widespread abuse

As your LakeCountyEye reads it, All Kids's own documents indicate that 75% of their enrollees are no-doc immigrants. However, the Herald story also cautions that the All Kids's figures are likely to be in error.

One McHenryCountyBlog commenter, perhaps a sockpuppet, fired back ...

the main point is the atrocity in the fact that ANY undocumented immigrants (ergo ILLEGAL to begin with) can avail themselves of ANY tax payer supported programs, aid, assistance, or help.
Illegal Aliens Compose 75% of All Kids Taxpayer Subsidized Health Care Program

Your LakeCountyEye, an observer of the big picture, would have to concede the larger point -- whether the figure is 75% or 50% or 25%, there are illegal immigrants working the system to their advantage.

Your LakeCountyEye's take-home: if Identity Politics is your game, then one can do worse than point a finger at the undocumented immigrants. Tapping into resentment, the so-called Southern Strategy, worked for Nixon in 1968. And as a political strategy, it works in 2010. There is resentment for all those illegal aliens that live wherever it is that they live; resentment that illegal aliens receive taxpayer-funded services; resentment that their children get public medical care.

A note to LakeCountyEye Operatives: When tapping into resentment, it also doesn't hurt to be rapping -- wrapping one's self in the flag. But when it comes to playing the Politics of Resentment your LakeCountyEye would advise anyone with the chutzpah, that it is even better to wrap it in religious symbols. It works for the McHenryCountyBlog, where these images (and more) regularly appear ...

Message of the Day – A Bumper Sticker (McHenryCountyBlog 03/28/2010) Message of the Day – A License Plate Holder (McHenryCountyBlog 09/13/2009) Message of the Day – A Bumper Sticker (McHenryCountyBlog 06/29/2009) Message of the Day – The Side of an Apartment Building (McHenryCountyBlog 05/24/2009) Message of the Day – A Bumper Sticker (McHenryCountyBlog 05/17/2009) Message of the Day – A Tee Shirt (McHenryCountyBlog 04/05/2009)

Mark Kirk in the BullsEye

Lake County favorite son and US Senate Candidate Mark Kirk picked up some more earned media but probably not the sort he was looking for. Last week Illinois Immigrant Action unveiled some attack ads -- which are reproduced here -- against Kirk. The ads are in Spanish and intended for newspaper and radio. They take issue with Kirk's stance on immigration, which according to their author, advocates "sending condoms to Mexico as a fix to the immigration system."

Being a firm believer that there cannot be too many condoms ever -- regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin -- the ad, for your LakeCountyEye at least, falls on deaf ears. Still, the ad is just clever enough to remind Kirk's FoxNews-echoing base that he is soft on immigration and a proponent of family planning. At the same time it suggests to the reasonable & undecided voters who will be his margin of victory or defeat in Nov 2010 (and who don't know Kirk from Andy McKenna), that Kirk might be a loose cannon. This is not something that ought to unduly concern team-Kirk, though. The ads are targeted at Spanish speakers, who probably won't be voting for Kirk anyways in either the primary or the general election.

Now, an attack ad that isn't seen by anyone except the target's opponents is the political equivalent of a tree falling in a forest that no one hears. It doesn't exist. This slippery distinction must have been lost on team-Kirk, because Kirk lawyers jumped the gun and discharged a threatening letter to Univision Radio to pull the ads. (The CapitolFaxBlog has a copy.) Given that no one, including the MSM, was paying much attention to the ads, an action like this all but ensures they are now.

The letter points a finger at the ad's wording: the ad says that Kirk advocates the use of condoms as a solution to illegal immigration, but in fact Kirk never used the specific term. However Kirk's legal guns may be ignorant of a Reuters story about a 2007 Foreign Aid Bill:

Kirk, who attended college in Mexico and holds a master's degree from the London School of Economics, may have offered an idea that might appeal to some fiscal conservatives. Shipping condoms to the poor in Mexico could be cheaper than the multibillion-dollar fence being constructed along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Lawmaker urges condoms for border control

The bill, HR 2764, which Kirk laudably voted for, removes the Bush era barrier on contraceptives and condoms with regard to foreign aid.

Technically speaking, Kirk may never have uttered the word condom. Politically speaking, perception is everything. Your LakeCountyEye thinks the meme may be out of the toothpaste tube.