Meg flips Left

John Seiler: It was inevitable as California having beautiful weather that Meg Whitman, after a brief jaunt to the Right to defeat Steve Poizner in the primary, would flip back to the Left. She’s now courting Latinos by opposing Arizona’s immigration law in a new series of pricey ads:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman set to work courting support among Latinos last week after a brutal GOP primary battle that forced her to take a loud and hard stance against immigration issues.

The centerpiece of her recent efforts is a series of TV and radio ads, released to coincide with the Mexico/France World Cup match, in which she touts her opposition to the Arizona immigration law.

“She includes all of us,” one ad says. “She respects our community,” says another.

But the California governor has absolutely no say in what will happen with the Arizona law. It’s a different state. And the controversy over a federal challenge to the law doesn’t involve California, either.

Moreover, what about Latinos who favor the law? After all, when illegal immigrants come here, they compete for the same jobs as existing, legal immigrants, generally on the lower end of the wages scale. They sure don’t compete to be eBay CEO.

It’s simple economics, something Meg should understand: increased supply of something means the price goes down. In this case, if you increase the supply of immigrants, then the price of immigrant wages goes down.

Finally: What’s her solution to the illegal immigration problem, which is bankrupting state and local budgets across the country? As the late Milton Friedman observed, you can’t have both open borders and a welfare state.

So, Meg, will you come out for ending California’s generous welfare state? Or how will you close the open borders?