I'm wary of writing anything that could potentially cause Mickey Kaus to blog or talk more about immigration, but his latest post on the subject is worth noting. Jumping off a Tom Edsall piece in National Journal (good luck trying to find it online), Kaus argues that immigration is still an issue presenting a myriad of problems for the Democrats. For instance, Rahm Emanuel is apparently so worried about any sort of "comprehensive" immigration bill that he wants 85 GOP votes in the House for "cover". Moreover, Democrats like Tammy Duckworth suffered last year for being perceived as "soft" on illegal immigration. Okay, so perhaps immigration wasn't a big winner for Democrats last time around. And maybe it won't be a huge help to Democrats in 2008. And yet, Kaus concedes that the elections "weren't a victory for anti-comprehensive forces" either. So, it wasn't a win for the Dems and it wasn't a win for the GOP? Here's Mickey on an unrelated subject:

Control of Congress is a zero-sum game. DeLay's staying can't help both sides get a majority. It's mathematically impossible. Either he helps the Dems by being a Gingrich-like villain, in which case he hurts the GOPs. Or it's the other way around.

Mickey makes this point a lot: Elections in two-party democracies are zero-sum games. What effect did immigration have, then? Of course it's possible that, on the whole, the issue made no difference whatsoever (it could have cost Dems 6 seats and cost Republicans 6 other seats, e.g.) Still, that seems improbable. One way or another, it's highely likely that it had some net impact. --Isaac Chotiner