I'm back. Did anyone miss me?

Out of town on biz for a couple of days. Now back, and ready to pose pressing questions:
Pressing Question #1. How did immigration become the issue it is? Seems that one day no one really cared, and the next it was all the rage. This happened, what?... two years ago? Two large themes prevent me from getting all excited about 'illegal immigration':

theme 1: The U.S. seems to experience anti-immigrant paroxysms with some regularity; these sometimes are framed as 'national security' concerns (e.g., post WWI "Palmer raids"), sometimes in terms of economic threat posed by immigrants (e.g., "The Gangs of New York" portrayal of mid-19th century anti-Irish sentiment), and sometimes as pure racism (the anti-Chinese quotas imposed late 19th & early 20th centuries). Though today's paroxysm features elements of all three frames, I am confident that it, too, will pass.

theme 2: There really are more pressing issues - Iraq, economy (nat'l debt, subprime crisis, incipient inflation, energy $, etc), and - what this blog is notionally devoted to - the erosion of Constitutional govt. Maybe when we resolve these I'll start worrying about illegal immigration...

Pressing Question #2: Why is rescuing Social Security ALWAYS a campaign theme???? Not only ALWAYS a theme, but always a theme FOR BOTH PARTIES??? Maybe my memory is just not that great, but I seem to recall DIRE PREDICTIONS about Social Security in the '70s. I'm one of those soon-to-be-retiring Baby Boomers and this has NEVER struck a chord with me. Sigh.