From the News Journal:
Protack said he didn’t mind much. He was getting a lot of mileage out of an about-face Lee made this week to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. After two days of controversy, Lee changed his mind and said it was a mistake.
“After the circumstances of this week, it would take 10 times that filing fee to rescue Bill Lee,” Protack said.
Protack was referring to the $5,300 filing fee he finally paid to officially enter the Republican primary yesterday. And it was mentioned in the article that the fee will find its way into the pockets of Bill Lee somehow, to which Protack said he didn’t mind, as quoted in the article. How does a filing fee paid to the state end up in Bill Lee’s pockets? Or the DE GOP’s pockets? Can someone explain that to me?
More importantly, however, is Protack’s reaction to Lee’s Hillary-like gaffe on offering driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. He thinks it will be the issue to sink the Lee campaign. But, as we have seen nationally and locally, illegal immigration as an issue does not have the potency that the GOP and its stalwarts think it does. Indeed, illegal immigration is a problem created by the free market, and the GOP cannot be seen attacking the free market without further destroying their brand as a party.
Is illegal immigration wrong? Sure. I do not condone people entering this country illegally. I much prefer they do it legally like my great grand parents. Should illegals get drivers licenses or any other government benefits save emergency health care? No. But you can’t work yourself up into a rage over illegal immigration because the illegal immigrants are really not the reason illegal immigration exists. Our economy and labor market is the reason. There is a demand for cheap labor that is not being filled by our own citizenry. Thus, it is being filled by someone else’s citizenry. The problem with illegal immigration ever becoming the wedge issue the GOP dreams it to be is because we are the ones to blame. We basically invite them here, so how can we scape goat them at the same time? Sure, some idiots will try. But they have not been successful to date.