Remember Admiral Stockdale?  In 1992 he was Ross Perot’s running mate.  A decorated career military man he was famously and disarmingly out of his element during the 1992 vice presidential debates.  At one point during the debate he said, “What am I doing here?”  At the time all of the smart people thought it was cute, a bit sad and some how it perfectly summarized Perot’s presidential bid.  A few years later, Dennis Miller remarked on Stockdale’s performance, “Could Stockdale have been our vice president?  You bet he could!  Do you think Al Gore is some kind of visionary leader?  His favorite movie is Tron for God’s sake!”

While looking at a recent Gallup poll I couldn’t help but think of this minor episode in presidential campaign history.  The study surveyed Americans opinions concerning the role of government and the Obama administrations new policies aimed at expanding that role due to the economic crisis.  

The findings showed that 45% of Americans are in favor of temporarily expanding the role of government until the current economic crisis is over.  Only 13% of Americans support the expansion of government and making these new policies permanent. 

Those in the 45% universe are surely being good pragmatists and likely make the assumption these new policies are by law temporary, like the Bush tax cuts, or are easily retracted.  Those who believe this fail to realize government doesn’t work that way and once it expands its power it is difficult, next to impossible to make it retract. 

I think Stockdale and Al “Tron” Gore serve as a good analogy for where our country is today.  Like Stockdale we’ve had a notable career, a nice run but things are different now and we have a group of ”visionary leaders” who want to take us down a road we’re unsure of but we don’t know how we got here.  

As part of their annual Rights and Relations survey, Gallup today released findings from a recent study of 1900 adults nationwide showing that attitudes toward legal immigration had softened since the terrorist attacks on September 11.  That’s to be expected.

The problem with their findings is when they move from writing about legal immigration to writing about illegal immigration.  They make a leap from addressing legal immigration to addressing California’s Prop 187, which denied government benefits to illegal immigrants.

They do a solid job of detailing the dichotomy illustrated by two-thirds of Americans beleiving  immigrants cost taxpayers too much by using government services as opposed to becoming productive citizens who pay their fair share of taxes while 79% believe illegal immigrants takes low-paying jobs that Americans don’t want:

All this is very good–not surprising for Gallup.  However, they then editorialize that “illegal immigration has faded from the public consciousness”, based on the finding that just 27% of Americans Adults (not voters remember) say illegal immigration will be an extremely important issue to their vote for President this year.

Has illegal immigration faded as an issue?  The economy has certainly been the top issue since around last December, but what about illegal immigration?  According to PollingReport.com, it really hasn’t faded much at all when asked comparatively.  In May of 2007 (CNN/Opinion Research Corporation. May 4-6, 2007. N=1,028 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3), 31% called illegal immigration “extremely important” in their vote for president.  In January of 2007 (CNN/Opinion Research Corporation. Jan. 19-21, 2007. N=1,008 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3), 32% called illegal immigration “extremely important”,  In October of 2006 (FOX News/Opinion Dynamics. Oct. 10-11, 2006. N=900 likely voters nationwide. MoE ± 3), 29% said illegal immigration was “extremely important”.

So, the number today is 27%, and in the past it’s been 31%, 32% and 29%.  Pretty consistent, particularly considering the rise in importance of the economy.

Bottom line is this is a good survey by Gallup, and it’s a postive thing that attitudes toward legal immigrants have softened.  But attitudes regarding illegal immigration have, in my opinion, stayed about the same for the last few years and these data released today don’t prove anything different.