Crime: The Next Wedge Issue?

This is not good for our side.
Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a frequent guest on The Chris Matthews Show (Sundays, MSNBC) and generally liberal. John McLaughlin is generally (though decreasingly) conservative, once a member of the Nixon Administration and longtime host of The McLaughlin Group, sometimes referred to as a "political food fight" (at least as entertaining, more substantive), taped on Fridays but seen as late as Sunday in some markets.
What do they have in common? Both this past weekend predicted that crime will be a major issue in the next Presidential election. I'm old enough to remember when the 1968 Nixon campaign emphasized "crime in the streets" with its obvious racial overtones. If resurrected in some form now, the overtones would be more subtle. Nevertheless, it sounds like one of those cultural "wedge" issues Republicans frequently drag out to drown out the economic concerns of the American people.