The Great Illegal-Immigrant Ruckus of '06

Published Jun 21 2006, 02:11 PM by Adam Reilly

So, Eileen McNamara thinks Tom Reilly is pandering on the illegal-immigration issue. (And yes, I use the term "illegal" knowing that some people think it's too pejorative. I'm not convinced.) I'm a big McNamara fan, but I wonder--if Tom Reilly is pandering, what about Chris Gabrieli?

Of course, figuring out if a politician's stances are sincere or expedient is an inexact science. So here's what I'm wondering: which of our various candidates for governor is making the right call on the immigration debate from a purely strategic point of view? Gabrieli and Kerry Healey are taking a hard-line tack, Patrick and Reilly aren't. So who's going to benefit come the general election? Listen to WRKO for two minutes, and you'll learn that there's some truly nasty anti-I.I. sentiment out there. Then again, the same thing was true for gay marriage, and look how that played out in 2004*...

Thoughts, anybody?

NOTE: Not 2006, which I wrote the first time around.