With all the attention the Republican presidential candidates have paid to illegal immigration over the past year, it’s been on the back burner for Democratic co-frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

A reader recently wrote and asked how Clinton and Obama differ - if at all - on immigration issues and where they fall in the spectrum. As with many of their political positions, the differences aren’t too dramatic.

Here are some of the things we came up with when sizing up the top Democrats’ immigration positions, starting with Barack Obama …

- Obama has consistently said he supports a guest worker program.

- Obama has said he “will not support any bill that does not provide [an] earned path to citizenship for the undocumented population.”

- Obama does not believe that 12 million illegal immigrants can be sent back. He said “It’s not going to happen. We’re not going to go round them up … We should give them a pathway to citizenship.”

- In September 2006, Obama voted for the Secure Fence Act, authorizing the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

- In January 2008, perhaps in an effort to attract Lation votes, Barack Obama campaigned to grant drivers licenses to illegal immigrants.

Here are some notable Hillary Clinton immigration policy notes …

- On March 8, 2006, Hillary Clinton criticized H.R. 4437, a bill passed by the House of Representatives in December 2005 that would impose harsher penalties for undocumented workers. Clinton called the measure “a rebuke to what America stands for” and said it would be “an unworkable scheme to try to deport 11 million people.” She believed the solution to illegal immigration problems was to make “a path to earned citizenship for those who are here, working hard, paying taxes, respecting the law, and willing to meet a high bar for becoming a citizen.”

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The Democratic Congress is poised to heed President Bush’s call to help save the economy, but may not give him much else.

In a State of the Union speech that recycled many past initiatives, the lame duck called again for immigration reform, an end to lawmakers’ pet projects, control of Social Security and making tax cuts permanent.

Democrats have rejected many of the same Bush initiatives before.

In a sign that the dominant political battles will not be in Congress, many in the House chamber kept an eye not on Bush’s speech but on Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, who hours earlier had endorsed Obama over Clinton, reached out to shake Clinton’s hand when she approached.

Delivering the televised Democratic response, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius - who is considered a possible running mate for Clinton or Obama - urged Bush to work with a Congress controlled by her party.

“The last five years have cost us dearly — in lives lost, in thousands of wounded warriors whose futures may never be the same, in challenges not met here at home because our resources were committed elsewhere,” she said. “America’s foreign policy has left us with  more enemies.”

The president pushed hard for “a robust growth package” to jump-start the economy, asking Democrats to avoid the temptation “to load up the bill.”

Democrats already were planning to expand the stimulus plan negotiated by Bush and House leaders from both parties, to include tax rebates for senior citizens and an extension of unemployment benefits.

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