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"'President Bush and the Senate Republicans have simply got to give in to the _______________ demand of...'
The demand is always the same, fill in the blank with the crusade of choice."

You're right, the demand IS always the same.
And when the demand comes from tax-hawks and it's "No New Taxes" the Republicans always give in on that demand, because 1992 taught them that doing anything else with that PARTICULAR constituency, tax-hawks, will result in defeat.

And when the demand is "clear pro-life nominees", the Republicans always cave in and give into that demand, because they know that the pro-life wing of the party is huge, and not bluffing.

The Border Conservatives are a large enough, angry enough, important enough faction of the party that the Republicans have to give on their demand too, because they can't win without them.

If the blank was filled by, say, "drill in ANWR", the truth is that the faction of the party committed to that is NOT so big or so strong that the Republicans have to cave into it or lose, so they don't.

The entirety of the problem here is a misunderstanding consisting of treating the BorderBots as though they were a fringe group, as opposed to treating them as though they were like the tax hawks or pro-lifers or the business roundtable: core constitutents who cannot be ignored on their core issues.

So yes, your sentence is true. There is, indeed, always some group or other saying "Give us X or else." You can't give everybody everything. But when it's tax-hawks, pro-lifers or the Business Roundtable, you bet your sweet bippy that the GOP leadership steps and fetches: because the "or else" for THOSE massive groups is "Or else you get a 1992".
The big chunks of the base have to be appeased.
BorderBots are a big part of the base.
Drilling may never happen in ANWR, and it won't determine the outcome of any election. But raise taxes, put up a pro-choice Supreme Court Justice...or refuse to close the Mexican border...and you lose elections.

The demand may be phrased the same way, but the important thing is who's making it. BorderBots are too big to be ignored.