Republicans in Congress have been pushing an anti-immigration bill that, among other things, made being an illegal immigrant a felony. Then they did some polling and found out that if they passed this they would be invigorating the (legal, voting) Latino community. So they tried to get the felony part out of the bill. Democrats, who wanted to kill the bill altogether, blocked Republicans from removing the felony language, thus ensuring that no one would vote for the bill. Good move, good political manuvering.

But now Republicans are running Spanish-language ads in Latino communities saying that Democrats hate Latinos and using the fact that they voted to keep the felony language in the bill. And of course the media is going along with it calling the Democrats hypocrites. Poor Democrats can't catch a break.

I called them chumps in the title, but this really is a question of money. In today's environment, you can't rely on your opponent to be civil, and you can't rely on the media to actually do any reporting, and you can't rely on voters to have enough time or interest to actually go out and investigate these claims on their own, so it's all about being able to get your meesage out. And Republicans, by the virtue of the fact that they are the party that represents the wealthy and the large corporations, will always have more money to get their message out. The solution is out there, in the sense that there's more of us working people than there are rich people, but we have to be active and help organize and also donate when we can, and that's an uphill battle.