In Porous Border, GOP Sees An Opening

"Most of those immigrants coming across are working jobs that most people here don't want anyway," she said. "Most of them are good people trying to get a better life. It's a smokescreen, is what it is."

But even some Democrats worry that immigration hard-liners may be accurately gauging the temper of the times -- and that the GOP has found an antidote to its woes.

In the liberal enclave of Bisbee, a picturesque 19th-century mining town spilling down the walls of Tombstone Canyon, the talk among Democratic partisans congregating in artist studios and cafes was of the Bisbee police officer who was pulled off the beat, put into his National Guard uniform and stationed a few miles away at the Naco border post.

"So stupid," said Susan Rohrbach over tea at a Bisbee coffee shop.

But, she added, the anger of the few diehard Democrats in the district may be nothing compared with the rage being stoked among the Republicans by the anti-immigration push.

"I'm afraid that is the right strategy, at least in this state," she said.

At a Graf rally last Monday at Trail Dust Town, a Tucson tourist stop, the talk wasn't over whether to build a wall on the border with Mexico, but what kind.

"Jewish-style," counseled Lee Ewing, 70, referring to the Israeli barrier being erected around the West Bank. "Double-layered, with a berm in between and razor wire."

Ewing railed against Bush's immigration policies, saying he failed to deploy enough resources on the border, and against the war in Iraq, where "2,600 Americans have died . . . for nothing." But given the choice to vote for a Republican vowing to clamp down on illegal immigration and a Democrat promising a new course in Iraq, he said he would not hesitate to vote Republican.

At the Bakers Dozen donut shop in Sierra Vista, Sally Hawk of Huachuca City held her tongue as her husband, Jim, fretted over a Republican Party in control of the House, Senate and White House but "doing nothing." Then, when talk turned to the illegal immigrants flowing over the border, she chimed in hesitantly: "I think they ought to shoot them. I don't have anything against Mexicans. I just want them here legally."

Democrats Have Broader Plan

Most of the Democratic candidates are confident that their broader assault on Republican policies will prevail in November. Former Tucson anchorwoman Patty Weiss, who is locked in a contest for the District 8 nomination with former state senator Gabrielle Giffords, said candidate coffees and house parties regularly pass without a word about immigration as she talks up universal health care, education and environmental quality.

Giffords said the GOP thrust can be parried with a tough Democratic response that blames Republican inaction for the crisis that illegal immigrants have visited upon resource-strapped schools, health-care systems and law enforcement agencies.

"We're mad here in Arizona," she said. "The Republicans can try to say they're going to come in on a white horse on the immigration issue and save the day, but they have been in power for six years, and they have done nothing."

David Green, a retired journalist and independent voter, milled uncomfortably last week on the fringes of the Graf rally, still very much undecided about his vote in November. Don't be fooled, he said, by the 100 or so Graf supporters so confident a Republican would win the seat. Illegal immigration is just one of the discontents of the district, he added, and it could well work against the Republicans.

"The feeling is, 'I'm fed up with illegal immigration. I'm fed up with Iraq. I'm fed up with gas prices. I'm fed up with nothing being done about the minimum wage,' " Green said, as black thunderheads rolled down the mountainside and chased the rally into Trail Dust Town's faux Old West opera house. "The general attitude is, 'Whoever's in, I want him out.' "