The open-borders Wall Street Journal, in a subscription-only editorial today, is crowing that the election results on Tuesday represent a repudiation of the idea of aggressively enforcing immigration laws, and says:

In Arizona, which is ground zero in the illegal alien debate, two Republicans defined by their opposition to immigration were defeated by wide margins. Representative J.D. Hayworth, who is so proud of his desire to turn the U.S. into a single gated community that he wrote a book about it, lost handily. So did Randy Graf, another anti-immigration absolutist who ran for an open seat in a district that borders Mexico and sees more illegal immigrant traffic than perhaps any other Congressional seat in the nation.

Graf did lose rather handily (Michelle Malkin, for one, in the later section of her early-afternoon post, believes there were many factors other than immigration involved), but Hayworth is holding out, and would seem to have some reason to:

Hayworth declined interview requests with the Tribune, but in television and radio interviews the six-term Republican said he planned to wait out the final count.

Election officials said more than 250,000 ballots cast in Maricopa County have yet to be counted. They were unable to immediately determine how many of those ballots were from the 5th district, which includes Scottsdale, Tempe, Ahwatukee Foothills, Fountain Hills and surrounding areas.

Unofficial results late Wednesday had Democratic challenger Harry Mitchell ahead with 50.5 percent, followed by Hayworth with 46.2 percent and Libertarian Warren Severin with 3.3 percent.

Mitchell led by 5,955 votes among 140,819 votes counted so far.

The WSJ’s definition of a “wide margin” is in need of adjustment, as is its take on the effect of Tuesday’s result on the immigration debate. More on that over the weekend.

Despite the first sentence of the excerpt, I don’t know how else to interpret this from University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman (HT Powerline):

Of course the University of Michigan will comply with the laws of the state.

At the same time, I guarantee my complete and unyielding commitment to increasing diversity at our institution.

Let me say that again: I am fully and completely committed to building diversity at Michigan, and I will do whatever it takes.

….. Martin Luther King Jr. told us: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Let’s stand together to tell the state and the nation that the University of Michigan embraces … promotes … wants … and believes in diversity.

Let’s stand together to say we value all those on our campus who make this such a remarkable institution.

Let’s stand together to say: We are Michigan and we are diversity.

Ms. Coleman, there are a couple of problems:

1. The voters just passed the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), requiring in no uncertain terms that you run your university based on merit, not diversity. Considerng that the initiative was opposed by anybody and everyone in the state’s liberal and conservative establishment, the 58-42 margin of victory is remarkable.
2. Martin Luther King has this as his most famous quote: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Please cut out the politically correct rhetoric and start carrying out the dream, Ms. Coleman. The voters have spoken. The discussion is over. Your job is to obey.

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UPDATE: More thoughts from Kate, as well as great comments are at Small Dead Animals (”the word ‘diversity’ appears 21 times”). Also Sigmund, Carl and Alfred calls Coleman’s diatribe a “Tribute To Academic Stupidity And Hubris.”
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Previous Posts:

• Sept. 27 — Best Column of This Past Sunday: George Will on Michigan’s Civil Rights Initiative
• Sept. 1 — Mob Rule in Michigan Requires Repudiation at the Polls
• Dec. 19, 2005 — A Rough Few Days for Civil Rights and Race Relations, with a Whiff of Sanity

Newshound’s special post-election Carnival of Ohio Politics is here.

The Club for Growth reports (HT Brian at One Oar in the Water):

I like the thought of either. I think Steele would be a little better.

With either person, it would be fun to watch the 527 Media make every conceivable effort to ignore them. My suggestions would be:

• Any time Howard Dean appears on the Sunday talk shows, demand equal time.
• Any time Steele or Blackwell appear, ask why Howard Dean isn’t there.

Two years of a black Republican debating a white Democrat on TV would be interesting indeed.

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UPDATE: The talk about Steele is apparently serious — so serious that the Dems are openly talking about replacing Dean with the just-defeated Harold Ford. Based on Ford’s blow-up in the final weeks of the Tennessee US Senate race, that would appear to be a match made in heaven for the GOP.

The results are pretty good, but it does go downhill after the first point:

• 8 of 11 backed in their House primaries won. 7 of those 8 won in the general election.
• Steve Laffey lost the RI US Senate primary to Lincoln “Chapstick” Chafee, who in turn lost in the general.
• Ken Blackwell was backed and won the OH gov primary nomination, but lost in the general.
• 2 of 5 other House members who were only backed during the general election won.
• 4 of 5 other Senators who were only backed during the general election lost (Steele, Bouchard, Allen, McGavick). Two of the four had to be considered longshots from the start.

Compared to how some other conservative orgs did, CFG can hold its head high, especially for the House members they took through from the primaries to the finish line. It has gotten more selective since its June 2005 debacle (see second item at post; also see the fourth “Loser” at this post) in Ohio’s Second District GOP congressional primary.

How many times does ACORN get to pass off its fraudulent vote-registration efforts as the work of rogue employees before the claim loses its crediblity?

I’d say we’re well past that time, as is clear from John Fund’s Wednesday column at OpinionJournal.com:

….. The organization says on its Web site that it “registered over 540,000 low-income and minority voters” and deployed over 4,000 get-out-the-vote workers for yesterday’s elections. But after years of scandal involving its election efforts and misuse of government grants, Acorn is finally coming under scrutiny, with four of its Kansas City, Mo., workers under indictment for submitting false voter registrations. (As of this writing, all are at large.) Other states–including Pennsylvania and Maryland–are also conducting probes. Notes the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas City: “This national investigation is very much ongoing.”

….. One of those states is Missouri. St. Louis election officials were so inundated with bogus Acorn-generated voter registrants that they mailed a letter to 5,000 registrants, requesting the recipients to contact them. Fewer than 40 responded. Mr. Rathke attacked the officials as “slop buckets” and claimed they had “broken the law in trying to discourage new voters illegally.”

ACORN should be prohibited from engaging in any voter-registration drives again, PERIOD.

Think immigration.

Think amnesty.

Think more cross-border remittances.

Then think of the election results.

From Scotland:

October 30, 2006

A TAXI driver who miraculously escaped after a skip fell from a lorry on to her cab has thanked the “guardian angel” firefighter who saved her.

Sharon Bain, 44, was trapped by her steering wheel for more than four hours while fire crews painstakingly cut through the wreckage to free her. The firefighter who helped rescue her said it was the worst accident he had seen where the victim survived.

For all the time she was stuck there, David Carey, 43, crouched beside the grandmother-of-three, holding her hand and keeping her calm.

The silver Hackney cab was driving up Abbeyhill towards London Road when it met a lorry carrying two skips heading in the opposite direction on October 20.

The skips hit a bridge and fell on top of the taxi while the lorry careered on to its side. The taxi’s passengers, a woman and her nine-year-old twins, managed to crawl free from the back of the cab.

Ms Bain met crew commander Mr Carey at Marionville Fire Station where he works. It was the first time they had come face to face because during her ordeal her head was jammed to one side by the weight of the skip.

“I’ll never forget him. He’ll be my hero until the day I die. I could just hear his voice and feel his hands,” she said.

“It was a miracle and Dave was my guardian angel.”

Although her taxi was destroyed, the City Cabs driver, whose feet were caught under the pedals while the skip pressed on the steering wheel, amazingly only suffered a broken rib and severe bruising.

She said that what she remembered most were the trains rumbling overhead.

“The trains were really frightening,” she said.

Mr Carey, who has been a firefighter for 20 years, telephoned her in hospital the day after the accident and the pair agreed to meet the next week.

He said: “I thought she’d broken her legs at least, but she told me she was getting out of hospital that day. The skip landed on the car, completely encasing it. We had no doors to work with because the near side was pinned against the railings and the skip was on the other side.”

The crew cut through the back of the cab and roof and clambered through the wreckage.

Mr Carey said: “I leant through the window and held her hands. I kept telling her how impressed I was that she was so calm.

“I tried to put myself in Sharon’s situation but you can’t imagine how frightening it was. She was amazingly brave. I promised her we’d meet up when she got out. It’s very emotional for me to meet her again,” he said.

It was the second serious car accident for the Tranent woman, who had a metal plate put in her shoulder after a bus hit her car in Spain in 1989.

But she said she would not be put off driving and hoped to be back in the taxi she owns with her partner Martin Wilson, 39, again soon.

“I love my job and I want to get back behind the wheel,” she said.

She also revealed that while she was trapped in the cab her meter kept running and eventually totted up a bill of £143.