PEW Research Center: GOP seen as Principled but too Extreme

MoonHowler

GOP seen as Principled but too Extreme
At a time when the Republican Party’s image is at an historic low, 62% of the public says the GOP is out of touch with the American people, 56% think it is not open to change and 52% say the party is too extreme.Opinions about the Democratic Party are mixed, but the party is viewed more positively than the GOP in every dimension tested except one. Somewhat more say the Republican Party than the Democratic Party has strong principles.
Do you think these findings are accurate?  Who has the strongest principles?  I think it is all in how principles are defined.  I would certainly agree that the GOP has a more solidified set of ideologies.  Just compare the 2 platforms.  However, I think that rigidity is part of being extreme.
How are the Democrats out of touch?  How are the Republicans out of touch?  This is all opinion of course.  Define ‘out of touch.’
I used to think my grandmother was out of touch when I was a young woman.  I thought she was old fashioned.  The older I got, the more I realized much of that out of touch thinking was really truisms of life.  She bestowed a gift on me.
There is out of touch and then there is out of touch.  To quote that great poet of the 60’s, The Times They are a’Changing.  You had better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone for the times they are a’changing.

Pew Research Center: U.S. Unauthorized Immigration Flows Are Down Sharply Since Mid-Decade

MoonHowler

According to the the Pew Reseach Center undocumented immigration is down since mid-decade. (see above)

The annual inflow of unauthorized immigrants to the United States was nearly two-thirds smaller in the March 2007 to March 2009 period than it had been from March 2000 to March 2005, according to new estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

This sharp decline has contributed to an overall reduction of 8% in the number of unauthorized immigrants currently living in the U.S. — to 11.1 million in March 2009 from a peak of 12 million in March 2007, according to the estimates. The decrease represents the first significant reversal in the growth of this population over the past two decades.1

The Pew Hispanic Center’s analysis also finds that the most marked decline in the population of unauthorized immigrants has been among those who come from Latin American countries other than Mexico. From 2007 to 2009, the size of this group from the Caribbean, Central America and South America decreased 22%.

By contrast, the Mexican unauthorized population (which accounts for about 60% of all unauthorized immigrants) peaked in 2007 at 7 million and has since leveled off. The number of unauthorized immigrants from the rest of the world did not change.

Even though the size of the Mexican unauthorized population living in the United States has not changed significantly since 2007, the inflows from that country have fallen off sharply in recent years

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What is the cause? Better border enforcement? The economy? Random?

Entire Pew Report