Politicsdaily.com columnist Matt Lewis and The Nation’s Net Movement Correspondent Ari Melber visit The Dylan Ratigan Show to talk about the latest political headlines. They begin with immigration reform and a proposal for new biometric social security ID cards that would make it more difficult for employees to hire illegal immigrants. Lewis compares this to the Arizona law, “it’s wrong for United States citizens to be stopped and asked for their papers… sooner or later it’s going to be…US citizens.” Melber agrees with Lewis adding that “it depends, of course, on how the card is structured…to the extent that it’s a brand new thing that you have to carry around I think that’s questionable, and I think a lot of people won’t like it.”

Next, it’s on to Florida Senator Charlie Crist’s decision to switch from Republican to Independent for the primary. Lewis argues that Crist switched parties only when he realized he couldn’t win the Republican nomination. Melber takes a step back and explains that with $7 million to spend, Crist wasn’t going to stop running. “Ultimately what you have down there is a sad state of affairs, where basically the only time we get genuine races, genuine democracy is when people have enough money in the bank account to run independent or have more people in the race and what we don’t have is genuine third parties or a wider spectrum,” Melber says.

—Morgan Ashenfelter