Today's Washington Post, in an article by Michael Shear entitled, "Kilgore Pulls Day Laborer Debate Into Va. Campaign," discusses Jerry Kilgore's view that Herndon's creation of publicly funded gathering centers for "day laborers" - overwhelmingly Latinos - "undermines the rule of law and 'denigrates' citizens who immigrated to the country legally." According to Claire Guthrie Gasta?aga, former Chief Deputy Attorney General of Virginia and "a lobbyist who represents immigrant groups," Kilgore "seems determined to lead from ignorance" and is "playing to the tune of fear mongers and worse."
And Frank Sharry, "executive director of the National Immigration Forum," which believes that "Immigrants are America" and which supports the day laborer sites, says that Kilgore could:
..."emerge as this decade's Pete Wilson," the former California governor whose Republican Party had its popularity decline after he became a symbol for a hard line on illegal immigration."When [Wilson] first started, it looked like it was a brilliant, if controversial, political strategy. It turned out to be a disaster," Sharry said. "It drove immigrants to the citizenship lines and the voting booth to vote against Republicans for a decade."
Tim Kaine says Kilgore is "putting a political ideology over a practical solution." Russ Potts calls Kilgore's position on this issue "a sound-bite, hot-button wedge issue . . . that takes people's minds off what the real issues are: transportation, education and health care." And Robert D. Holsworth, director of the Center for Public Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University, says that Kilgore is doing this because "[h]e believes it politically advantageous in Northern Virginia to highlight this issue and make it a central part of his campaign."
Well, that just about sums it all up, I'd say. As many of us have known for a long time, Jerry Kilgore and his top advisor, Scott Howell, simply are willing to say and do whatever it takes -- including the use of racial code language (see Howell's racist "black hands" ad in the 2004 Oklahoma Senate race as the prime example) and attacks on (largely non-voting) Latino/Hispanic immigrants -- to win election. Frankly, we Virginians are better than this. Let's tell Jerry Kilgore that the Scott Howell strategy of divisiveness, demagoguery, and distortion is not welcome in the Commonwealth. Even better, let's tell Jerry Kilgore: either give us your positive vision for the state, or kindly get out of the way and let someone else lead.