Mitt Romney’s secret Irish Catholic Weapon - Senior Adviser Peter Flaherty

Peter Flaherty

Mitt Romney has a secret, Irish Catholic weapon in Tampa this week, one that  experts say is key to him stealing away the Catholic vote from Barack Obama.  

Timothy Cardinal Dolan?  Nope.  Paul Ryan?  Nope.

His name is Peter Flaherty and he is a senior adviser to Romney, and prefers to  keep himself out of the spotlight. Which is a little odd given that Flaherty has worked in both national politics  as well as Hollywood. 

Nevertheless, Flaherty is described as one of Romney’s closest aides.  His main job?  Persuading Irish Americans and other Roman Catholics that Romney is the man they should vote for.

Much attention was paid when it was announced that Dolan would say the closing prayer at this week’s Republican Convention. “The move is perhaps the clearest sign of a more aggressive push by Republicans to win over Roman Catholic voters this election cycle,” according to The New  York Times.

But Romney’s close relationship to Flaherty is arguably more important. 

When Romney served as Massachusetts governor Flaherty was his liaison to Catholics, including Boston’s Sean Cardinal O’Malley.

While much has been made about Romney’s “invitation” (as the Times put it) to  Dolan, the New York Catholic leader also made it clear he would do the same  thing for the Democrats. Rather stupidly, the Democrats have apparently declined Dolan’s offer. 

Yes, there are major differences between the church and the Democratic Party - on gays and abortion among other things.

However, it would seem that President Obama would want to stress common ground, especially when every Catholic vote counts in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Romney’s Catholic running mate Ryan has been lauded for his  budget-cutting proposals, but guess what organization slammed Ryan for slashing social services and even misunderstanding the Catholic doctrine of “subsidiarity”? 

None other than the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops.  And who leads that organization?  You guessed it, Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

No, if you really want to get a sense of how the Republicans are going to try  and sway Catholics away from Obama you’ve got to listen to Flaherty, who told the Times, “We’re going to have outreach to Catholics in a coordinated, organized effort — state by state, diocese by diocese, parish by parish and pew by pew.”

Flaherty grew up in Arlington, Massachusetts and graduated from the College of the Holy Cross, majoring in economics.  An Irish American aunt named Eileen Gill was murdered in Boston when Flaherty was young, and he has long said that terrible crime spurred him to fight the bad guys.

Flaherty became an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County before going to work for his brother, Michael, who runs Walden Media in Hollywood.

Flaherty returned east and began volunteering for Romney, and has been with the GOP candidate ever since. 

Inevitably, the question arises of whether or not there really is a “Catholic vote” in America. 

Obviously, the days of Roman Catholics voting largely for the party of JFK are over.  Irish and other white ethnic Catholics are much more willing to vote Republican these days, while Hispanic Catholics are generally Democratic. 

Nevertheless, it would be silly for either Romney or Obama to dismiss 25 percent of the voting population who - for all of their differences - share important key factors.

First and foremost, they are clustered in key battleground states.  Also, while polls show that a majority of American Catholics are generally not opposed to birth control and abortion, they are also reverent and respectful towards religion in a way that Republicans can take advantage of.  That’s why it seems such a blunder for the Democrats to not accept Cardinal Dolan’s offer to pray at their convention.  It is the type of small thing someone like Peter Flaherty could make a big deal out of. 

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or tdeignan.blogspot.com)

Are the Irish liberal or conservative? GOP’s Paul Ryan meet Sister Megan Gillespie Rice

Sister Megan Gillespie Rice

Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, meet fellow Irish American Megan Gillespie Rice.

As the political world debated Romney’s pick – which means that for the first time, two Irish Catholics will be vying for the vice presidency –Gillespie Rice was doing some political work of her own.
Sister Megan, as she is known, is a Manhattan native and activist nun who has been arrested over 40 times throughout her busy career. 

Now 82, her most recent action landed her on the front page of The New York Times this past Saturday. 

Earlier this summer, Sister Megan and two accomplices carried out what the Times called “the biggest security breach in the history of (America’s) atomic complex,” breaking into the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation in Tennessee.

Sister Megan, in short, is a left-wing Irish Catholic activist, a label she would surely wear proudly, just as the anti-war Berrigan brothers did in the 1960s, as many members of the Catholic Worker movement did, and as activist groups such as the Catholic Radial Alliance did back in the 1930s (which was founded, incidentally, by one priest named O’Toole and another named – you guessed it – Rice).

Anyway, the next day, another Irish Catholic was in the news, this one named Paul Ryan, a darling of the American conservative movement.

Which begs the question -- who represents Irish American politics better, Ryan or Sister Megan?

A few weeks back I wrote a column about Irish America’s tense relationships with African Americans and racism.  Over 100 folks commented on the story on irishcenteral.com and I received loads of e-mails, some thoughtful, others not so much.

And by the way, the debate rages on.  In this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, an article about race riots in Chicago specifically referred to problems caused by the “mostly Irish police force.”

But at the heart of the question of Irish Americans and race is the bigger question of Irish American liberalism and conservativism. Who is the face of Irish American politics -- Kennedy or Reagan? 

More and more, as people like Ryan rise to prominence, it seems to be Reagan.  Conservative Republican Irish Americans are very easy to spot these days.  Look at the podium during the GOP convention later this month when the keynote speech is given and you will see Ryan’s fellow Irish American, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Quite a few people have traced how the Irish evolved from loyal Democrats until the 1950s and 1960s, when they started trickling, then flooding, to the Republican or independent lines. 
What people have talked about less is whether or not Irish Catholics (voters as well as politicians) have specific responsibilities based on their backgrounds. 

After all, people love flaunting their Irish Catholic roots. On St. Patrick’s Day, Republicans and Democrats love talking about where their grandparents came from in Ireland. 

But doesn’t that also mean you should have sympathy for 21st century immigrants?  

Kissing babies after Mass makes a great photo-op.  But does that also mean you should obey the church’s teaching on gays, poverty, abortion and the death penalty?  Or confront the church over these contentious issues?

Ryan himself waded into this by claiming that his ultra-conservative budget plan was actually in line with Catholic social teaching.

This prompted criticism from, among others, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops because, as Gerald Beyer recently noted in America magazine, “Official Catholic social teaching has long accorded a positive role for the government in protecting the economic rights and well-being of people.”

The sad truth is that most Irish Americans are not true to their Irish or Catholic roots. 
Republicans too often bash immigrants and the poor.  Democrats too often are condescending towards religion. 

So, who is the true face of Irish American politics?

Right now?  Nobody.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or tdeignan.blogspot.com)

Will the real GOP stand up? Republican’s stance on immigration is vexing

Republican Peggy Noonan

A few weeks back, when an Irish-born journalist (and we use that term loosely) named Neil Munro heckled President Obama’s immigration policy during a press conference, many people pointed out the obvious irony. Here was an immigrant suggesting that the president get tough with immigrants.

To most people, this made Munro a hypocrite. But at least it was clear where he stood.

And now that President Obama has offered a path to citizenship for certain children of illegal immigrants, his position is fairly clear also.

As for the other side, that’s a lot more complicated.

Some Republicans grasp that immigration is a boon to at least some state economies. Some sentimentalize immigrants, while others (I’m thinking Mitt Romney here) are flummoxed to the point of silence.

Which is at least better than echoing the hard-right, anti-immigrant Republican line which was present at the party’s founding.

After all, the party of Lincoln was also the party of anti-Catholic, anti-Irish sentiment in the mid-19th Century.

I’m not demonizing conservatives here. Former Reagan White House operative and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan – whose name is as Hibernian as it gets - penned a fine column celebrating the immigrant spirit to mark Independence Day last week.

“The old hatreds,” Noonan wrote. “They dissipate here. In Ireland, Catholics and Protestants could be at each other’s throats for centuries, but the minute they moved here they were in the Kiwanis Club together.”

Again, kudos to Noonan for celebrating America’s immigrant heritage, and perhaps upsetting some fellow conservatives. But really?

“The minute” Irish Catholics and Protestants came to America things were just awesome and cool? I’m not Peggy Noonan for a scholarly dissertation on, say, the hanging of Irish Catholics such as Goody Glover in the 17th century colonies, or the 1870s riots that lefts dozens of Catholics and Protestants dead on the streets of New York.

But a little realism never hurt anybody, even on the Fourth of July.

Noonan’s sentimental approach to immigration is something to which Irish Americans are particularly prone. There is so much emphasis put on the contribution of the well-behaved immigrants of the past, there is an implication that today’s immigrants are, well, different.

Prior to 9/11, it was believed by some that today’s immigrants were simply not as hard-working, or as patriotic, or were gang members, or came here for the welfare benefits. And even if they were hard-working, that was a problem because they were taking jobs, or were simply illegal, which is a fairly unambiguous term.

All the more so in a post-9/11 world where illegal immigrants can be out to kill us all. Nevertheless, there remains a deep, scary and downright un-American strain of nativism out there in America.

And being sentimental or selective about immigration is not much better than being outright hostile to it. Back in 2006, none other than Noonan wrote this, “There are a variety of things driving American anxiety about illegal immigration and we all know them -- economic arguments, the danger of porous borders in the age of terrorism, with anyone able to come in. But there's another thing.

“(We) are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically. And if you don't do that, you'll lose it all. We used to do it. We loved our country with full-throated love, we had no ambivalence.”

Does it really need to be pointed out that, back in the good old days, there was massive ambivalence on the sides of both native-born Americans and immigrants?

We fought not one but two wars against a nation which gave us millions of immigrants (Germany) and we held members of two large immigrant groups (Japanese and Italians) in detention camps during World War II. Meanwhile, how do you think a lot of Americans felt about Ireland being diplomatically neutral during World War II?

All of this is simply meant to point out that immigration has always been vexing.

For now, we know where Obama and the Democrats stand. And even if they’re just after votes, isn’t that partly what our system is all about?

Currently, the Republican Party is made up of historical revisionist sentimentalists like Noonan, neo-nativists like Munro, and confused bumblers like Romney.

By November, will the real GOP stand up?

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Liberal attack on Mitt Romney is wrong - Larry O'Donnell attacks the Mormon faith

Lawrence O’Donnell

Liberals love to say that right wingers hijack religion and exploit it for political purposes. Maybe.  But liberals also made it very easy to do so.

For a group of people who – rightly – like to take credit for defending people’s rights, liberals still have a blind spot when it comes to religion in general and Christians in particular.  This is particularly troubling because the liberal Christian tradition in America is so strong.

The latest lefty to fall into this trap is Irish American MSNBC talk show host Lawrence O’Donnell.

Last month, O’Donnell, who once worked as a close aide to sainted Irish American Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was doing what liberal talk show hosts always do -- bashing Mitt Romney.

Nothing wrong with that.  In fact, Romney’s charge that Barack Obama is trying to “establish a religion in America known as secularism” is desperately in need of correction.

But what did O’Donnell do?  Instead of taking Romney to task for wildly exaggerating Obama’s dedication to an anti-religious agenda, O’Donnell went after the Mormon faith.

“Religiously, Mitt Romney lives in the glass house of American politics,” he said.

O’Donnell then added, “Mormonism was created by a guy in upstate New York in 1830 when he got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it. Forty-eight wives later, Joseph Smith’s lifestyle was completely sanctified in the religion he invented to go with it, which Mitt Romney says he believes.”

First of all, as O’Donnell later admitted in an apology, this is inaccurate.  Most scholars believe Smith had his religious awakening prior to the scandal involving the maid.

But that is far from the most important point here.  Irish Catholics, in particular, should be quite wary of pointing out the peculiarities in a given religion as proof that a candidate is somehow unfit for office.

After all, O’Donnell used to work with Moynihan, who was not only a senator but a first-rate scholar of the kind of bigotry Irish Catholics faced as they climbed the social ladder in America.  More than that, Moynihan worked for the first Catholic president!

Lord knows, back in 1960 many people said things like this, “John F. Kennedy believes in a religion led by a guy who wears a funny hat, who never gets married, and claims to be infallible.  They also decided that it’s OK to eat meat on Thursdays and Saturdays, but not Fridays.  They also put ashes on their foreheads once a year.”

Every religion is open to criticism such as this. Which is why O’Donnell should not have attacked Romney the Mormon.

Instead, he should have attacked Romney the Republican.  Or Romney, the exploiter of religious fear, which is what the Republican candidate was doing by implying that Obama -- who many

Republicans still believe is a Muslim -- holds anti-religious views.

Yes, it is true that O’Donnell ultimately apologized, but it really never should have come to that.  There have been countless times where people on the left side of the political spectrum, who show respect and stand up for the rights of Jews and Muslims and atheists, nevertheless bungle the matter when it comes to Christians of varying stripes.

The reasons are obvious.  Liberals tend to view conservative Catholics and Protestants as part of the power structure.

And, since they are in favor of taking on the power structure, liberals generally believe they are acting
bravely when they tackle issues cherished by religious conservatives.

But there are some problems here.  First of all, in the case of Romney, he is, by every definition, a member of a religious minority.

To slam aspects of his faith, but then give others a free pass -- like, say, all those Democrats who call themselves Catholic but support abortion and the death penalty -- is unfair.

More importantly, liberals and their inability to debate religion well have created a truly bizarre scenario -- Christians who feel persecuted in the United States!

Yes, we have this state of affairs partly because right wingers are so savvy at exploiting this.

But they’d have nothing to exploit if O’Donnell and his colleagues didn’t consistently make such blunders.

If attacking Romney the Mormon is the Democratic plan for success in November, it’s going to be a long campaign.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan.)

GOP’s Rick Santorum knows nothing about America’s immigrant heritage

Rick Santorum (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Specifically, I recommend to the Republican presidential candidate a much heralded debut novel by Lyndsay Faye entitled The Gods of Gotham.

The book is set in the 1840s, just as the Famine Irish were pouring into New York.

Needless to say, not everyone was pleased at this influx, and Faye includes snippets of the most vile anti-Irish, anti-Catholic writings of the day.

“The popish countries of Europe are disgorging upon our shores, from year to year, their ignorant, superstitious, and degraded inhabitants, not only by tens, but by hundreds of thousands, who already claim the highest privileges of native citizens, and even the country itself.”

So claimed a tract entitled American Protestant in Defence of Civil and Religious Liberty Against
Inroads of Popery.  This is just one sample of several Faye includes in her book, to capture the wild fear Catholic immigration struck into the hearts and minds of native-born Americans.

As a devout Catholic (as he is all too willing to remind us), you might think that Santorum would be slightly sensitive to the kind of bigoted thoughts that drove nativists back in the 1840s.

You might think that, but you’d be wrong. Because Santorum is hanging around with folks on the campaign trail whose intolerance seems right out of the good old anti-Catholic days of the Know Nothing party of the 19th Century.

Last week, while campaigning in Louisiana, Santorum was introduced by a wonderful Christian named Reverend Dennis Terry.  Here’s what Terry had to say:

“This nation was founded as a Christian nation...there’s only one God and his name is Jesus. I’m tired of people telling me that I can’t say those words.

“If you don’t love America and you don’t like the way we do things, I’ve got one thing to say -- get out! We don’t worship Buddha. I said we don’t worship Buddha. We don’t worship Mohammed. We don’t worship Allah.

“We worship God. We worship God’s son Jesus Christ.”

Some of us do.  Others, alas, don’t.

Santorum was there on the stage as this guy said this.

Why stop there, Reverend Terry?  Fifty years ago it would have been perfectly fine to add something like: “And we don’t kiss the ring of anyone sitting in a palace in Rome wearing a fancy hat.”

That’s exactly the type of anti-Catholic garbage Al Smith faced on the campaign trail in 1928.  Even in 1960, John F. Kennedy heard that America was simply not a place for certain types of religion.

Undoubtedly, Terry and those like him would not have had much use for Santorum’s Italian immigrant grandfather and his “popish” ways.

But did Santorum condemn Terry and his intolerant ravings?  Hardly.

“If the question is, do I agree with his statement that America shouldn’t do that? No, if he was speaking for himself he’s obviously allowed to believe what he wants to believe but, obviously I believe in freedom of religion and all religions are welcome and should be,” Santorum said afterwards.

Of course Terry is “allowed to believe what he wants to believe.”  No one doubts he and many others are free to think like pinheads.

The question is this -- does Santorum honestly believe that he should be sharing a stage with a man who trashes America’s long, gloried history of immigration and assimilation, one of the things that made this nation great and strong?

In particular, as a Catholic – a group despised unlike any other not too long ago – does he not see that bashing one religious minority eventually leads to the bashing of all?
Santorum did offer up a defense for himself.

“I didn’t clap when he said that. I do remember him saying that, I said, well, I wasn’t quite sure he was saying it for himself, I wasn’t quite listening to everything to be honest with you.

“But I wasn’t sure whether he was speaking for himself or speaking generally, but I didn’t clap when he said that because it’s not how I feel.”

Good grief.

Not clapping and claiming to not listen now serve as a rousing defense of America’s melting pot heritage.  Well played, Mr. Santorum.  Your grandfather would be so proud.

Next time someone asks Santorum how he feels about America’s immigrant heritage, he should just say he knows nothing.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Mitt Romney bashers fail John F Kennedy test

Hopeful GOP nominee Mitt Romney (REUTERS/Rick Wilking)

How is it possible that all these years later, revelations about JFK and women still make headlines?

This week, there were more sordid tales coming out of Camelot, this one about 19-year-old Mimi Alford, who supposedly had an affair with Kennedy while she was serving as a White House intern. (You can insert your own Clinton joke here.)

Naturally, Alford has a book to sell. The bizarre thing is not that she has a book to sell but that there are people willing to buy it.

Nevertheless, these days, there are some things about JFK worth discussing.

Ironically enough, this has nothing to do with JFK’s sexual dalliances, but instead with his religion.

Kennedy, of course, was the first Roman Catholic to become president. He didn’t face the fire and brimstone Al Smith did in 1928, but the 1960 campaign had its fair share of anti-Irish, anti-Catholic sentiment.
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So, Kennedy famously delivered a speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960, attempting to confront whispers that he would be the Pope’s president.

“Because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured -- perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in -- for that should be important only to me -- but what kind of America I believe in,” he said.

The speech was considered a bold move on Kennedy’s part. But it was also kind of sad that a member of any religious minority had to make such a speech in the first place.

The implied message was that Kennedy had to prove that he had just as much a right to run for the presidency as any Protestant.

Now, we have a Mormon running for president, Mitt Romney. And while much has been made of the rift between evangelical Protestants and Mormons, less has been noted about the way normally tolerant liberals have also raised questions about Mitt’s faith.

Romney’s “conspicuous cone of silence about this major pillar of his biography also leaves you wondering what he is trying to hide,” writes former New York Times columnist Frank Rich in the current issue of New York Magazine.

Rich goes on, “That his faith can be as secretive as he is…only whets the curiosity among the 82% of Americans who tells pollsters they know little or nothing about Mormonism.”

Secretive? Trying to hide something?

Given what folks have said about the all-powerful Vatican in the past, these very things could well have been said about JFK in 1960. And that’s a shame.

There’s a fine line between wanting to know more about a candidate’s background and equating silence with suspicious secrecy.

The late best-selling author Christopher Hitchens, before he died, declared, “we are fully entitled” to ask tough questions about how Romney’s faith shaped his political philosophy. There is, of course, a defensiveness to that declaration.

Because Hitchens and those like him know that you run the risk of seeming anti-Mormon, if not anti-religious, by pushing such questions. Hitchens, for one, was a proud atheist.

But one suspects that if the leading Republican candidate was a devout Buddhist or Jew -- or heaven forbid, Muslim -- people like Rich would be the first to view such questions as bigoted.

There is so much material to slam Romney on -- his flip-flopping, his cutthroat private sector policies, his thin political experience. Why go after his religion?

Yes, he himself speaks of God oh so much on the campaign trail. He is not the only one.

The problem, then, seems not to be Mormonism but religion in the political sphere in general. Liberals don’t like to be labeled as anti-Christian, but there are times when they make it awful easy for the right wing to do just that.

Sure, Romney could make another JFK-style speech about his religion. But would that really satisfy the critics who view him with suspicion?

As JFK said back in 1960, “For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew -- or a Quaker or a
Unitarian or a Baptist.”

Or a Mormon.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Stephen Colbert’s “Rock me like a Herman Cain” serious joke - VIDEO

Stephen Colbert

So Comedy Central fake news anchor Stephen Colbert’s efforts to make waves in the South Carolina primary didn’t really work. 

Hoping to laugh all the way to the ballot box, Colbert told followers in his native South Carolina to show their support by voting for Herman Cain.  The project -- tongue planted firmly in cheek -- was called “Rock Me Like a Herman Cain!”

In the end, Colbert/Cain received only about 6,000 votes in South Carolina, or about 1%.

But Colbert -- one of 11 children, who never misses a chance to reference his Irish Catholic roots -- can rest easy. 

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He is well on his way to making an impact of truly historic proportions. 

And he is using that trusty Irish tool -- satire -- to do so.

Colbert has created a Super PAC (Political Action Committee) called Americans for a Better
Tomorrow, Tomorrow.  And he has shown that for all of the time and effort put into creating intricate rules to regulate the influence of money in the political process, it is laughably easy to subvert those rules.

If you were yawning by the time you read the end of that sentence, this is understandable.  The precise reason political financing rules are so easily subverted is because they are such a tiresomely boring topic.

But Colbert may finally succeed where so many others have failed -- by exposing this absurdity.

It should be noted that this is not Colbert’s first foray into the real world of politics.

In 2010, he went before Congress (as his right-wing character), and spoke out against illegal immigration.  He said that his great-grandfather did not come from Ireland to see America "overrun by immigrants."

Indeed, Colbert has always been vocal about his Irish roots.

When he spoke to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates as part of the Faces of America project (this time speaking as his humble self), he spoke at length about his ancestors from Tyrone and Roscommon, and how his great-grandfather came over on boat he knew as “the noble Dundee,” to work on the Erie Canal.

“Part of being Irish is hating the English in America,” Colbert added.  “They probably got over it better over there than we did over here.”

Colbert’s latest satirical crusade takes aim at political fundraising.  Money in politics is a topic people like to complain about, but which is also so murky that it’s difficult to blast the system in anything other than the most bland, generic terms.

For me personally, money in politics is not inherently evil.  To believe money can be separated from politics is hopelessly naïve.

What is disturbing is that so many rules were set up to create the illusion of fairness, and that no one really talks about the obvious ways to subvert these rules.

Colbert is not only talking about it. He’s showing it.

As a recent New York Times Magazine profile of Colbert put it, “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow…is entitled to raise and spend unlimited amounts of soft money in support of candidates as long as it doesn’t ‘coordinate’ with them, whatever that means. Of such Super PAC efforts, Colbert said, ‘This is 100 percent legal and at least 10 percent ethical.’”

Super PACs these days play a huge role in elections.  Perhaps you’ve noticed that almost every time you see a political attack ad, it is not paid for by the candidate but some group with a weird name. 

Such as “Winning Our Future.” This is a Super PAC which supports Newt Gingrich, even though Gingrich is technically not allowed to be in contact with them. This even though Winning Our Future is run by a bunch of Gingrich pals.

Everyone’s got one of these PACs. Everyone knows the rules are a joke. And yet, they play a key role.
Colbert has since made his own pal Jon Stewart the head of his Super PAC. Colbert and Stewart simply can’t “coordinate.” 

In case you miss the point, this illustrates just how farcical this all is.

Colbert is currently accomplishing what hordes of journalists and activists could not -- shedding light on a complicated yet vital topic.

He may not get many votes for president.  But Colbert may well spur significant changes in the electoral process.

Somewhere, Irish satirist Jonathan Swift must be smiling.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Here, watch the video of Stephen Colbert at the Herman Cain rally at the College of Charleston:

Mitt Romney’s troubling immigration pal Kris Kobach

Mitt Romney (REUTERS/Chris Keane)

The movement to make sure that anti-Irish, anti-Catholic cartoonist Thomas Nast is not enshrined in the New Jersey Hall of Fame continues to gain momentum. 

A wide range of groups, and not just Irish ones, have come out against Nast, who was famous for inventing our image of Santa Claus, but also made Catholics look like scheming villains and the Irish look like apes.

And yet, even as this very sensible opposition to nativism and anti-immigrant ideas makes itself heard, there is troubling news on the horizon. This only proves yet again that we are a schizophrenic nation when it comes to immigration.

Barring a major catastrophe, we can expect that Mitt Romney will emerge from this weekend’s South Carolina primary as the Republican candidate for president.
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And so, even though the general election in still 10 months away, it is probably not too early to start thinking about how certain key issues will play out.

News reports that Romney was hitting the campaign trail with a man by the name of Kris Kobach suggests we can expect a bitter campaign on the immigration front.

Who is Kris Kobach?

Though he is little-known outside of political circles, Kobach is a tremendously influential -- and divisive -- figure.

By day, Kobach serves as the Kansas secretary of state. But he is also a lawyer and outspoken activist against illegal immigration and is one of the driving forces behind controversial anti-immigration measures in a number of states, most notably Arizona.

Arizona, of course, is where an Irish American and former Port Authority police officer named John Kavanagh -- who serves as a state senator -- has been spearheading a movement that some critics call anti-immigrant or nativist.

Back is 2010, Kavanagh, who was born in Queens, confronted just such a protester, who demanded to know where his own ancestors came from originally.

After touting his Irish (as well as German) roots, Kavanagh went on to stress that his ancestors came to the U.S. “legally.”

This, of course, may be true. 

But it’s not like illegal immigration was just  recently invented.  Millions of Americans not only have
immigrant roots, they also have illegal immigrant roots.

Sensible people, of course, can disagree over immigration. But Kavanagh and Kobach have catered to some hardline thoughts on this topic.  And now they are taking aim at the U.S. Constitution.

Earlier this month, a New York Times story about a looming immigration battle featured both Kobach and Kavanagh, and it’s not the first time the duo has been paired in the press.

“The next big immigration battle centers on illegal immigrants’ offspring, who are granted automatic citizenship like all other babies born on American soil,” the Times noted.  “Arguing for an end to the policy, which is rooted in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, immigration hardliners describe a wave of migrants…stepping across the border in the advanced stages of pregnancy to have what are dismissively called ‘anchor babies.’”

With the latest news that Romney has been endorsed by, and campaigning with, the likes of Kobach, we can be sure to expect lots of nasty talk about immigrants on the campaign trail.

Not that we should be surprised.  Everyone knows that Romney, though likely to win the nomination, also has very soft support among conservatives.  All along he has been taking a hard-line stance on immigration, playing to voters fears. 

This even as conservatives such as New Gingrich and Rick Perry have made shocking statements suggesting that we not scapegoat immigrants for the country’s woes.

This, of course, plays right into Romney’s hands.

The problem is that such tactics generally poison the atmosphere and accomplish nothing in terms of some our real problems relating to immigration, the economy and jobs.

Furthermore, President Obama will be in no position to stand up for a sensible immigration policy during the election.

So, expect lots of nasty talk about immigrants in the coming months.  Thomas Nast would be proud.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or www.facebook.com/tomdeignan)