Drew, don't know where you live but where I do -- Nevada -- xenophobic attacks on "illegal immigrants" work just fine.

An entirely misleading ad implying that our candidate favored drivers' licenses for "illegal immigrants" sunk the progressive campaign I worked on last year, by taking away a lot of moderate to conservative Democratic voters -- even though they knew the conservative republican would be terrible (as he's turned out to be). Even a lot of people who ended up voting for us didn't understand why she wanted to "give extra rights to illegal immigrants."

And its the gift that keeps on giving -- once established that public services go to "illegal immigrants," it allows republicans to challenge otherwise highly popular programs such as college tuition assistance, publicly subsidized health care or even additional funding for kindergarten.

To keep this on topic, the line that it would only make him look idiotic is what everyone said about LePen in the 70s and 80s.