Introducing the 'Look! This campaign actually has substance

The largely cosmetic election coverage thus far has led to a common dogma. The Republican front runners have different ideas and are varied on the issues, while the Democratic front runners are homogenous, their electability hinging on personality, not substance.

But this is lazy coverage. A very simply carousing of the candidate’s web sites and you can find many differences between Clinton, Obama and Edwards. Yes, for the sake of conversation I will still consider Edwards a front-runner.

In what I am calling 'Look! This campaign actually has substance', over the next couple posts I will take salient issues, outline the candidate’s stance on each, and highlight the differences between the three.

First up immigration.

At the risk of being called a liar, you will have to forget what I said above about differences in policy, the Democratic front-runners stances on immigration are quite similar.

Each plan stresses securing the boarders, brining people out of the shadows and protecting families, but none explains how these goals would be accomplished.

Edwards and Obama's plans mirror one another, while Clinton's is underdeveloped and gives very little insight into what she would do if elected.

All of the candidates want to strengthen the boarders, but Edwards is the only one who steps outside of ambiguities and offers some concreteness to his plan. Under his immigration reform plan, Edwards would double the number of boarder patrol agents, both Obama and Clinton say that securing the boarders is important but offer no insight into how they would accomplish such security.

Another aspect implicit in all three plans is a path to citizenship. Both Obama and Edwards want those here illegally to pay (a yet undetermined) fine, learn English and get in the back of the line and wait their turn to become US citizens. Clinton's only says that she opposes a guest worker program, which Edwards supports, but does not further elaborate.

Clinton does emphasize protecting families. In early 2007 she authored an amendment which would have allowed legal immigrants, with green cards, to bring their immediate families up from Mexico. The amendment capped the number of family members at 87,000.

Overall, the Democratic front-runners all have weak, ill-defined immigration policies high on rhetoric and low on numbers. Obama has the most developed policy, but that is not saying much-akin to being the skinniest kid at fat camp.