He hasn't signed it yet.

Fencewatch update: MSNBC's Tom Curry suggests that the sandwiching of the fence vote with the detainee vote, reported by AP yesterday, is not a done deal.

Another option that the Senate GOP leadership was considering late Monday: attach the detainee legislation to a bill the Senate is debating that would authorize building of a 700-mile fence on the Mexican border.

For Democratic candidates in close races, it might be difficult to say "no" to a combination of a border fence and a detainee bill. [E.A.]

On the other hand, combining the bills lets Dems who vote "no" pick which part of the sandwich to object to. Why give them that out? I guess the answer is that if the GOPs felel that their party has the bigger megaphone (i.e. more money for ads), then their "Senator X voted against a border fence" ad would outweigh Senator X's "No, I was just voting against the detainee bill" ad. Since Senator X would probably have "free" media (i.e., MSM) on his side, though, I still don't see why it isn't the better GOP strategy to put him on the spot on each issue separately. ...12:09 A.M.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Iconic CW Lurch on the midterms:

1) Old CW: It looks really bad for the Republicans.

2) New CW: The cake isn't baked! GOPs are closing the gap!

3) Newest CW: It looks really bad for the Republicans.

See especially analysis-against-interest from Jay Cost  and John McIntyre  at the conservative RealClearPolitics.  Cost even raises the spectre of GOP cocooning. [Does this mean that the people who said (1) all along were right?--ed Of course not. How can you even suggest that? That would spoil the fun.] 11:27 P.M.

WaPo's Chris Cillizza and Jim VandeHei visited Ohio's competitive 1st District and were surprised, they say, to discover that immigration is the hot issue, even though there isn't a "huge" illegal problem in the area. Why? VandeHei:

There's a big union presence. I think people are frustrated with their wages being low and they feel like part of that is because the illegal immgrants are working for lower wages.

Now I see why we're constantly being told that embracing semi-amnesty and basking in the gratitude of Latinos is the only long term Democratic strategy for victory.** All the Democrats risk giving up is the union vote! A minor Dem constituency. ... Well, a rapidly shrinking one, anyway. ... Same for the working class vote!

**--In fact, of course,  Democratic candidate John Cranley is fighting back, not by publicly embracing the enlightened McCain-Kennedy "path to citizenship," but by claiming that "he is the tough-guy when it comes to cracking down on illegal immmigration." He must not have read where Tamar Jacoby says that never works. 2:56 A.M.