Conservative deputies are anxious to avoid an election campaign dominated by an issue over which they are deeply divided.
The issue dominated a summit meeting of European Union leaders on Thursday, where leaders argued about the rights of members of the European Union to expel unwanted immigrants from other member states.
Engineers of all stripes — chemical, computer, electrical, mechanical, industrial, environmental — have also fared relatively well since the onset of the recession: they dominate a ranking, issued by Payscale.com, of the disciplines that produce the best-earning graduates.
The two issues dominated a meeting in Brussels, even though the job of president has yet to be legally created and Mr. Blair has not officially declared himself a candidate.
But America is in a vastly different place than it was in 2004, which was the last time that national security issues dominated a presidential election, or in 2006, when the Iraq War was a focus of the midterm elections.
As the hearing wound down, it was far from clear if the justices were ready to find purposeful discrimination and side with Foster, or if they'd gotten sidetracked with the procedural issues that dominated a good chunk of the hearing.
Mr Underhill said the issue of sex workers dominated a recent meeting.
Neil MacGregor, the first director of the museum to agree to meet representatives from Greece, in effect slammed the door on them yesterday in a speech at the Museums Association conference in Brighton, an event dominated by the issue of the marbles.
She was subsequently allowed onto the follow-up programme with UKIP and BNP in which much of the discussion was inevitably dominated by immigration, an issue that is not central to her campaign.
In a year in which no issue is dominating, a Bush adviser said, "issues are important but they are important as reflections of broader values and keys into a candidate's leadership".
