With our special 50th District congressional election approaching because Duke Cunningham has gone to prison for taking obscene bribes, most of the candidates are insulting voters with shadow issues.

The Republicans eat and breathe illegal immigration because: 1) most are demagogues; and 2) the semi-official Democrat candidate is simply without a clue on real issues and only states “They have no plan on illegal immigration,” as if she does.

Why do I use such a broad brush? Because we are at war and these candidates insult our intelligence while Americans are dying. The issue of the day is the war on terrorism and the fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, not whether the restaurant dishwasher is here legally or not.

Keep in mind that recent published studies of the District conclude that this Congressional district has 46% college graduation and attendance rates, 17 percent higher than all of California.  Its income is higher; its home ownership higher; its property values higher; and its high school graduation rates are higher--All this with a sizable 20 percent Hispanic population.  Nonetheless, only one Hispanic, a retired judge, made the 18-person ballot for the April election.

Given the superior quality of the District’s population, the following statement is as clear as this writer can make: The future and safety of the world depends on American success in the Middle East.  We must have stability in that part of the world. Terrorists and their sponsors must be fought there, not here.

That is exactly what we are doing in Iraq, which was formerly an official sponsor and financier of terrorism as clearly shown in the 9/11 Commission Report. According to recent news reports many Iraqis cheer and applaud American soldiers, as predicted by intelligent people three years ago. Iraqi dictator and mass murderer S. Hussein is on trial for his life. We are succeeding in our fight against terrorism.

This war has been fought with a small army, with largely minimal losses and can’t even begin to compare with previous wars.  The Mexican War lasted but two years but, as John S.D. Eisenhower wrote in his “The U.S. War With Mexico,” of the “104,556 men who served” in that two year war (1846-48), “13,768 died, the highest death rate of any war in our history.”

Compare those figures to our 2,300 dead in Iraq over three years.  There is no comparison.  All we read and see is the worst news about our presence in Iraq. Moreover, the gutless and spineless wonders among us have turned the war into a political issue highlighted by the introduction of a “censure” against President Bush motion by Senator Feingold (D-WI) recently; something that is not even mentioned in the Constitution as a tool against the President.

So where is the real support for our Middle East efforts by the gaggle of congressional wannabes?  Most are shooting off their mouths about illegal immigration, walls on the Border, Minutemen support for their candidacies and Mexico bashing.

They are evidently clueless that we are in a death struggle with worldwide terrorism not Mexican busboys and vegetable pickers.  They are also ignorant of real California public opinion. 

The California Field Poll surveyed 500 Californians (Feb. 12 - Feb. 26) with a margin of error of plus/minus 4.5 percent.

“Extremely concerned” about illegal immigration—43 percent, the lowest level in the Field Poll since 1996. “Not concerned” about illegal immigration--26 percent, the highest level since 1996. In 1997, 58 percent of voters said they were “extremely concerned” about illegal immigrants, versus only 16 percent not “concerned at all” about illegal immigration.

For the first time, a plurality of California adults –  47 percent to 45 percent – believes that California benefits from illegal immigrants. In 1994 when the state was hysterical about illegal aliens and voted for the mostly unconstitutional Proposition 187, there was a 26-percent-to-67-percent favorable-unfavorable result Field Polls. In 1982, just 19 percent thought illegal immigrants had a beneficial effect on California, while 75 percent said they did not.

Support for a guest worker program now is 65 percent with a minority of 25 percent opposed. None of these congressional wannabes tell us this.

Is the 50th District, 1/54th of California, different from California as a whole?  Today, I think not.  So why are our congressional candidates insulting our intelligence with hysterical rants about lettuce pickers while Americans are dying for a stable American future on the desert sands of the Middle East, the current front in the global War on Terrorism?

Contreras’s newest book—THE ILLEGAL ALIEN: A DAGGER INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA published by Floricanto Press is available and reviewed at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com