Bush's immigration plan hurts re-election war chest

The Washington Times ^ | January 16, 2004 | Bill Sammon

[Anti-Bubba182]

President Bush's immigration initiative has angered conservative Republicans so much that some are refusing to donate to his re-election campaign, according to a Bush fund-raiser in Georgia.

Phil Kent, a member of the host committee for a Bush fund-raiser in Atlanta yesterday, said he was told by several would-be donors that they would not attend the $2,000-per-person event because of the president's announcement last week on immigration reform.

[AnimalLover]

Ping

[latina4dubya]

wow--two checks were withheld... and though others didn't like his immigration proposal, they still wrote the checks... cool... i hope those checks keep coming in...

[Hank Rearden]

I had serious reservations myself about sending in a check. I ended up deciding to send a check but I included my comments.

What the hell do they care about your comments? Those were trashed as soon as the check was extracted from the envelope.

They got your money. That's all politicians ever want. That, and power of course. You've been conned, like so many Republicans who just won't make the decision to stop supporting Big Stupid Government-supporting politicians.

As for me, I threw illegal-alien amnesty on the pile of reasons George won't get a dime or a vote from me.

[Fledermaus]

Yes...it's just a "proposal" and will never get through Congress in any legislative form this year. Heck, it won't even be brought up in committee.

[rmlew]

Lawrence Auster has a rather interesting take on Bush's motivation:

What I am suggesting is that Bush’s January 7th immigration announcement was nothing less than a conscious declaration of war against those remaining elements within the Republican party and the conservative movement that still show any resistance to the open borders ideology and the destruction of the historic American nation. If this interpretation is correct, then the wave of outrage that Bush’s announcement has unleashed will not discomfort Bush and his strategist Karl Rove in the slightest. They were expecting it and desiring it. They see our anger as the last hurrah of the old xenophobic America, before its final defeat and expulsion from the Republican party and from American political life as a whole.

Frankly it seems to be working. Look at how many conservatives, who would oppose the plan were it proposed by a Democrat, yet defend it because Bush announced it.
How long before I am called a racist, a xenophobe, or this post is deleted?

[Fledermaus]

Yeah, and when they get their new green cards they'll get driver's licenes and more services.

And what happens when they have kids born here? They won't be expected to leave after 3 or 6 or 9 years when they have a U.S. citizen now in their family.

In the first year of this program we'll see a huge Hispanic baby boom.

As ususal with government morons, unintended consequences are never factored into their ideas.

[lentulusgracchus]

That's an interesting attitude.

I'm becoming convinced that Bush is surrounded, by choice, by a crew of typical corporate suck-ups.

One of the things that struck me about hearing sections of conversations between Nixon and his subordinates was the unmistakable slurping sounds of sucking up. Sometimes it was as deafening as it was unjustifiable under the circumstances.

What politics is supposed to do, is help these guys keep it real. Sounds like politics is breaking down, and all that is left is a disaggregated bunch of egotistical adventurers and their sycophants and their money backers.

That would explain the stink of cult and dynastic politics that has hung over the White House ever since Slick slithered in.

[lentulusgracchus]

In the first year of this program we'll see a huge Hispanic baby boom. As ususal with government morons, unintended consequences are never factored into their ideas.

What makes you think the consequences are unintended?

The last 10 years have presented you with the spectacle of not one but two presidents of putatively opposed political parties, both of whom, at one time or another, have made common cause with leaders and peoples of other countries against their own people.

That tell you anything?

[Fledermaus]

You can go back farther...Reagan gave them amnesty in 1986.

[lentulusgracchus]

Gerry Lynn Warner, who works for an Atlanta assisted-living equipment company, said ...."I don't agree with everything he does, and I think it would be a mistake to do what he has proposed," Mr. Warner said. "In business, you have to support the guy you think is going to win." [Emphasis supplied.]

Quote of the week. And a defining illumination of political rainmaking.

[Michael121]

Bush did not do ANYTHING. All he has done is make a proposal. It has to be put into language in a bill by the house and the senate. And that will take time. then it has to be hammered out then funded before any details.

It was just an idea. It is not the ol' Clintonian Executive order. It was just an IDEA. An ELECTION YEAR IDEA. If some of you are politically astute you would see this for what it is.

THE STEALING OF ANOTHER PLATFORM FROM THE DEMS.

Give GW more credit than that, alot of you are doing exactly what the RATS have been underextimating GW's grey matter. There is no amnesty there is no SS money leaving. It was just a speech laying out an IDEA. And it is about political strategy not policy.

GIVE IT TIME.

[lentulusgracchus]

...Reagan gave them amnesty in 1986.

I'd love to know how that one was sold to Dutch. He was surrounded by Bush people by then.......Mr. Investment House himself, Don Regan, was his chief of staff.

I seem to recall that in the notorious William Greider article in the Atlantic Monthly, David Stockman described how Jim Baker dominated the Reaganauts on the President's staff by setting up a "Tuesday Group" that filtered all the information flow to President Reagan's desk, this group being stacked by Baker with Bush people. Ed Meese was IIRC Reagan's only loyalist on that committee, and that allowed Baker and Dick Darman to "Option-C" the president to death. Reagan was constantly having to deflect these little policy traps that his Bushbot staff kept setting for him, to get him to do things that Bush's Wall Street "audience" (in the James Q. Wilson sense) wanted done. Which is what Stockman meant by his notorious "pigs at the trough" comment.

[Fledermaus]

I think he was sold on the part of afterwards, the borders would be closed and the INS would get tough.

[lentulusgracchus]

Which, of course, kinda didn't happen.....because of the Bush influence throughout the Executive, because Dutch had given Bush too much patronage in return for support during the general campaign.

[dennisw]

Lawrence Auster blog is a must read. I rembember him over the years (pre-internet) writing many letters to editor at Commentary Magazine. He was the same back then. A Pat Buchannan type Jew except on Israel. (So am I for the most part)

[Brandon]

So, instead of $2,004,000, Bush only made 2,000,000 today?

That was my first question, too. The article quotes a handful of people, but doesn't give any statistics to back up the headline -- i.e., there's nothing here to support the assertion that fundraising is being hurt in any significant way. Did the fundraising event sell out? My guess is that it did, because if it hadn't, it wouldn't have been easy to find out, and it would have supported the thesis of the article much more strongly than what was actually presented.

[Brandon]

You don't really know how much he's lost on this, or is going to lose, do you!

No, we don't. The author didn't report that information. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be because he could only find a handful of people so unhappy that they refused to write a check?

[Beck_isright]

Also posted here with over 900 comments, fyi

[Beck_isright]

" As for me, I threw illegal-alien amnesty on the pile of reasons George won't get a dime or a vote from me."

Agreed.