Dean Heller's Brief Journey From Border Hawk to Champion of Amensty Took Only One Election

He didn't even bother with the "I've evolved" story.

He just went from pre-Election-Day border hawk to post-Election-Day Amnestia.

Sen. Dean Heller was adamant about the DREAM Act.

“I believe it is an amnesty program, a back-door amnesty program for the 12 to 15 million people who are here illegally,” Heller declared, apparently not caring or not knowing that the DREAM Act applied to a small subset (hundreds of thousands) of the total undocumented population (those who go to college or are in the military).

In his zeal to brandish the “amnesty” sword, which had proven to be a cutting issue for Republicans, Heller tossed truth to the wind while also waving off so-called birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants, saying it “makes less sense today” than when the 14th Amendment was passed.

Heller, as usual, was on message. And the message was right out of the standard GOP playbook at the time.

That time was Oct. 15, 2012, a few weeks before the appointed senator became an elected senator by a thin, 12,000-vote margin, despite losing Hispanics by a staggering 41 points. It was Heller's second electoral near-death experience in six years, and he would react just as he had when Sharron Angle almost defeated him (he won by 421 votes) for Congress in 2006 -- he would, ahem, adapt.

Since Election Day 2012, Heller has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis, from Sen. No Amnesty to Sen. Immigration Reform Broker. All the two personas have in common is that they postures rather than positions, and neither is very believable. This is the same protean politician who was a maverick, hardly partisan secretary of state who suddenly became a super-conservative after Angle almost defeated him in that congressional primary.

As you know, I've generally been of the squishy, some-compromises-must-be-made frame of mind on the dishonesty of our representatives.

No more.

posted by Ace at 05:53 PM

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