Among the non-presidential election stories this season, few are as bizarre as this.
Conservative southern California AM talk radio hosts John and Ken (a.k.a. John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou) want to unseat the most powerful California Congressional Republican they can in order to demonstrate their ire over illegal immigration, which they claim steals “native” Americans’ jobs (even though the jobs that most illegal immigrants take are ones that Americans won’t poke with a 10-foot stick). Even though caller after caller on the show has complained about the dangers of allowing another Democrat into Congress, John and Ken feel that not even Republicans are doing enough to stop the tide of illegal immigration, and want to send a message by organizing a campaign to defeat Republican Congressman David Dreier (chairman of the insanely powerful House Rules Committee), a 20-year incumbent with a $3 million campaign fund running against a no-name Democrat with $25,000 on hand. Dreier is heavily supported by real estate firms, insurance concerns, and health care conglomerates.
Rants against illegal immigration are often flimsy disguises for racism; to their (partial) credit, John and Ken are also calling for employers and businesses to be fined and CEOs jailed for relying on illegal immigrant labor. It seems unlikely that they’ll either unseat Dreier or advance the anti-illegal-immigrant agenda very far, though; illegal immigrants constitute a vast pool of cheap labor for American corporations, and Republicans and Democrats alike know that there is a strong proportional relationship between the growth of the U.S. economy and how porous American borders are.