Posted on 06/13/2007 10:50:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
On his radio talk show last Friday, dittohead in chief Rush Limbaugh was working himself into quite a lather. The subject? Immigration reform, specifically the controversial immigration bill now before the Senate -- or, as Limbaugh dubbed it, the Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act. Though Limbaugh pummeled his usual targets on the left, complaining that the current immigration reform proposal was yet another Ted Kennedy-led scheme to destroy America, Limbaugh was also unsparing toward national Republicans:
At the end of the day here, what we're talking about is the marginalization, if not the destruction, of the Republican Party. Look, it's time to be blunt here. I said I'm going to stop carrying the water last November, and I'm not carrying the water. The current crop of Republican leaders has not only lost the Congress, the current crop of Republican leaders is on the way to destroying the base by signing on to this kind of legislation.
This is not the first time I've heard this sentiment. Before the 2006 midterms, a leader of a prominent national conservative organization told me flatly that conservatives were willing to choke down their disgust with Bush till the votes were counted, but afterward, win or lose, they would be silent no more. Sure enough, post-election, Limbaugh and others gave vent to some of their more unkind feelings about the president and his party. And now, thanks to immigration reform, the volume of complaints has risen to a roar. As soon as the details of the painstakingly negotiated bipartisan proposal began to trickle out last week, talk radio and the right half of the blogosphere went ballistic, saying the bill meant de facto amnesty for illegal aliens. Furious members of the Republican rank and file began talking about last straws and using "impeachment" and "Bush" in the same sentence.
For the past three decades, Republicans have carefully sidestepped the kinds of issues that could divide a party's followers from its Beltway elites -- and expertly deployed the same wedge issues against the Democrats. Now the party's 2008 front-runners are in trouble, one of Karl Rove's long-term strategic goals is in doubt, and the foot soldiers are close to open revolt, all thanks to one uniquely radioactive wedge issue. Could Limbaugh's warning about a great unraveling be true?
"The Republican strategy on immigration has been one of the great failures of modern politics," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, which has organized a systematic outreach campaign to Hispanic voters. "What's going on in the Republican Party is a debate between the strategists who want to win and a part of their base that is extremely xenophobic."
Immigration is especially perilous for the GOP because it is what might be called a "double-edged" wedge issue. It not only pits the party's base against a large and quickly growing pool of potential new Republicans -- 41 million Hispanics -- but also pits two key parts of the existing base against each other. The Wall Street wing of the GOP, which finances the party, wants to keep open the spigot of pliant and cheap Spanish-speaking labor. It finds itself opposed by much of the Main Street wing, which provides millions of crucial primary and general election votes and would like to build a fence along the Mexican border as high as Lou Dobbs' ratings or the pitch of Pat Buchanan's voice. And it's simply impossible for any political party to win if it has to choose between money and votes.
Why have Republicans found themselves on the point of this wedge? Because in the two decades since the last major immigration measure, the makeup of the national Republican Party and the demography of the country have both changed dramatically. In 1986, radio talkers like Limbaugh could not harness the power of millions of devoted daily listeners to bring national Republican political figures to heel, and the Hispanic vote share was negligible. Twenty years later, Limbaugh is the most popular talk radio host in America, and there are millions of Spanish-speaking immigrants living alongside Rush's listeners in the kinds of red states where Spanish was rarely heard before. At the same time, the Latino vote has grown to 10 million. The GOP is now forced to choose between its reliable base of close-the-border, English-only cultural whites and the rapidly growing bloc of swing-voting Hispanics.
The demographic winds explain why Karl Rove has been obsessed with corralling the Hispanic vote since he was the little-known sidekick of a would-be Texas governor. He made George Bush a uniquely successful candidate among Latino voters in both state and federal elections by embracing Hispanic culture and avoiding any whiff of anti-immigrant rhetoric. After Bush won a startling 40 percent of the Hispanic votes in 2004, double the GOP total from a decade earlier, the Democrats rightly panicked. The conventional wisdom among pollsters like Republican Matt Dowd -- a former Democrat who admits he was attracted to Bush precisely because of the then-Texas governor's views about Hispanic assimilation -- was that if Republicans could reach 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, they would be unbeatable, but if they sank below 30 percent, they would be in a world of electoral trouble. Sure enough, after many 2006 Republican congressional candidates ran nasty, anti-immigrant ads -- some juxtaposing the faces of Hispanic immigrants with Islamic terrorists -- the GOP share of the Hispanic vote collapsed to 29 percent in the midterm cycle. "The Republicans have to choose if they want to be a 21st-century party, and right now they are making decisions like they're a 20th-century party," says the New Democrat Network's Rosenberg. His organization took many of those attack ads and rebroadcast them on Univision to remind Hispanics which of the two parties had their best interests in mind.
There is a long history of GOP operatives eying Hispanics as potential voters, and that was true before the Hispanic population exploded and before the rise of Rove. Conservative complaints about immigration reform are partly an attempt to rescue, if not recuse, their movement from the failures of the Bush administration by claiming the president isn't actually a conservative -- or at least not a Reagan-styled conservative. But in a brilliant essay last fall, the New Republic's Peter Beinart demolished the more-liberal-than-Reagan fiction by comparing the two presidents on everything from their use of military force to their judicial appointments -- and immigration. Noting that "Bush has been widely scorned for supposedly backing amnesty for illegal immigrants," Beinart asks, "Where on earth could he have gotten that idea? From Reagan, of course, who, in 1986, signed a bill granting amnesty to illegal immigrants who had lived in the United States continuously since 1982." Not that conservatives will let history's stubbornness -- to paraphrase Reagan -- get in the way of making immigration Exhibit A in their indictment of Bush.
Ken Mehlman, immediate past chairman of the Republican National Committee, rejects the notion that the 1986 reform is a proper analog to the current proposal. He says it differs significantly from what happened under Reagan and constitutes "progress from a conservative perspective" because it conforms immigration "with the laws of supply and demand," tracks who is in the country, secures the border, and penalizes illegal behavior. "I think it's legitimate that a lot of conservatives are worried about the 1986 precedent," Mehlman, now a partner at Akin Gump law firm in Washington, said Tuesday in a phone interview. "But this bill avoids two of the 1986 pitfalls: First, back then there was no meaningful increase in legal immigration; and second, anyone who was here illegally we simply waved the wand and they automatically became citizens. This bill does neither."
As for the none-too-subtle complaints by dittoheads about the perils that immigrants pose to American culture and moral standards, Mehlman has a response for that, too. "What I would say in response to that is that this law requires people to learn English, learn about American history, and thus encourages assimilation. American culture is not based on national origin or race. It's e pluribus unum. When we celebrate St. Patrick's Day, do we view it as a foreign holiday? Do we eat a hot dog at a baseball game and think of it as a non-kosher food? No, we don't."
Immigration reform is clearly just part of the Hispanic outreach that Mehlman and the rest of the party's elite see as crucial to the party's survival. When Mehlman stepped down as national GOP chair after the 2006 electoral rout, the party had to make a choice. Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, an African-American, expressed interest in the job. But after witnessing Al Gore receive an even higher share of the African-American vote than Bill "first black president" Clinton, followed by Hurricane Katrina's final drowning of Republican outreach efforts to the black community, at this point GOP efforts to make inroads with black voters makes about as much sense as the Democrats targeting gun-toting yacht owners who preset the radio in their Lexus to James Dobson's radio program.
Hispanic votes are another matter entirely. The Republicans believe they can arrest the erosion of the 2006 election, and they know they must. Mehlman's job eventually went to Cuban-born Mel Martinez, the senator from Florida. Although paid staff do most of the day-to-day work of running a national party, it's increasingly unusual in the modern era to pick an incumbent elected official like a sitting U.S. senator to pull double-duty as national chair. That the White House wanted Martinez is thus revealing and, with respect to the party's base, a risky move. On May 18, Martinez gave a 5,000-word speech in Columbia, S.C., to assembled Republican state party chairs, of which more than 40 percent was dedicated to immigration. "I'm an immigrant to America," he proudly declared. "I understand what the American dream is about. I have an understanding of what it means to become an American, to stand there one day and raise your right hand and abhor and abjure, which is what the oath says, any allegiance to any other foreign land and become an American. I respect what that means."
That message is not selling well with Limbaugh and his minions. And the corporate wing's squishiness on immigration is already creating enormous problems for the GOP in the next election. Among the party's 2008 presidential front-runners, John McCain has borne the brunt of the backlash, since he is the hated reform bill's chief GOP cheerleader in the Senate and was the coauthor of its 2005 forerunner. On the conservative blog Red State, Hunter Baker wondered if McCain's immigration stance has effectively neutralized any advantage he might otherwise have been able to establish over Giuliani and Romney on abortion and other social issues. Perhaps showing the stress, during a contentious mark-up meeting on the reform bill, McCain said "fuck you" to fellow Republican Sen. John Cornyn and called Cornyn's objections to the legislation "chickenshit." On a conference call with a group of conservative bloggers, McCain then accused rival Mitt Romney of flip-flopping on immigration: "Maybe I should wait a couple weeks and see if [Romney's position] changes. Maybe he can get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his yard."
Rudy Giuliani is also feeling the heat. He was the mayor of a city of immigrants, where he championed many see-no-evil policies unpopular with the dittoheads, and has endorsed the immigration bill. One commenter at Free Republic Photoshopped the former New York mayor's face atop the cartoon image of a sombrero-wearing bandito, along with a caption reading, "Borders? Borders? We don' need no steenking borders!"
Only marginal candidates like Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, and Tom Tancredo, who has made it his signature issue, had sided explicitly with the populist base prior to the recent unpleasantness. Now Giuliani is dancing away from his own overtly pro-immigrant past, and the ever-elastic Romney has positioned himself as McCain's worst enemy on immigration. Sam Brownback, who cosponsored John McCain's original reform bill, decided in April to renounce Satan and recast himself as a nativist.
No matter what the 2008 candidates say or do, however, and regardless of how they fare in the primaries or the general election, the party's elite seems to know what it wants for the long term. The nation's Hispanic population continues to grow at more than 3 percent per year. The party's power players have decided that it is better to act now rather than later, even if Main Street rebels, because later the consequences can only be more dire. Their actions, including their support for the immigration reform bill, will either pull the GOP back from the brink, or push the party over it.
When you hear someone cast the opponents of amnesty as nativists you know the writer is not just hopelessly liberal but also profoundly ignorant of the country in which presides.
That’s the dems and RINOs agenda. They are all singing from the same choir book...
A lot of articles like this are painting all those who oppose the immigration reform bill as xenophobes. Not too many people actively hate immigrants. But a lot of people would like to see more respect for the rule of law.
The dems and RINOs expect us to roll over to a massive invasion of our country. Never before in history have 30-60 million people been allowed to cross a border without permission and then offered free amnesty! Unbelievable!
Just say NO to Amnesty!! Keep calling!! It’s NOT OVER!!
U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121
White House comments: (202) 456-1111
Find your House Rep.: http://www.house.gov/writerep
Find your US Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Evidently the idea that we wish to CONSERVE our culture and history is foreign to the elite.
Last Friday Rush was gone. I didn’t put much stake into what followed.
That’s because they live behind the walls of gated communities and other sanctuaries. This amnesty will not cause them the problems it will us; on the contrary, they stand to make trillions of dollars from it!! I hate class warfare, but enough is enough!!
This is from May, I posted it because of the analysis from a left-wing columnist that shows a different point of view.
There is a great article describing "liberals" by a liberal and this can be found HERE.
Note that "liberals" have an average income of 71,000, are the best educated with one fourth having post graduate degrees. Further, the 50%+ of the workers in 1967 were working in manufacturing. Now only 9% are. Liberals are the present ruling elite opinion makers of this country. They have little or no contact with working class people.
To me, it seems the liberals are touting this for the reasons described but also as a function of class--upwardly mobile, well educated elite people need labor to meet their service needs. What better labor can you find than the cheap, Latino variety.
Call me silly, but those are the core of the GOP from 1860 onwards.
What steams me the most about this immigration bill is the dishonesty of it all. President Bush and the other backers of the bill apparently believe that the US needs a very large inflow of new immigrants and that the current laws stand in the way. Instead of going to the Amercian people and trying to make the case that not only do we need the current 12-20 million illegals, but that we need still million more, they have embarked on a course to deceive us with the smoke and mirrors of a “comprehensive” plan that pretends to increase enforcement while actually keeping the border open. It is this sort of deception and manipulation that causes the public to become disenchanted and resentful of government and politicians.
For a few weeks now I've been saying this and never, ever got even a single reply.
But, erroneously I said only 30 million new voters, not 41 million.
Ultimately, there's votes to be had, we're screwed.
I am so disgusted with this immigration plan and the RINO’s and Bush’s support for it that I try to convince myself that this is some devious Rovian scheme to fire up conservatives to sweep us back into power in 08. /wishful thinking
Oh, and what about the country, the economy, the iniation of a two-tier system where some follow the laws and others have free reign to do as they please?
It takes only a few idiots to destroy a country.
Seems we have both parties willing to turn the country over to illegals and make us pay for it.
Didn’t read it, but didn’t “Salon” go broke?
Calling your opponents “racist” is SOP for the left (and RINOS).
You cannot keep a country if you allow 400,000 to come over th border without going through our immigration screenings as other immigrants do.
If this is not stopped, all will come over the border rather than go through immigration.
And, why would they want to become legal and have to pay taxes when they can be illegal and get everything free?
What makes anyone think they will honor the laws, if they are told come on over and ignore our laws, do not pay taxes, use our entitlement system freely without limitation. They would be fools to become citizens.
The Democrats used to present themselves as the saviors of Social Security. I do not hear talk of the cost of this bill to entitlement programs. If Amnesty passes as proposed, Social Security will be bankrupt sooner rather than later, not only social security but every other entitlement program on the books. I see this bill as an expansion of the social welfare state and therefore an expansion of government and as government expands so does the power of government at the expense of the power of the people. This is a power grab by the lovers of big government. Illegal immigrants are undereducated and low skilled and high maintenance users of government services. Illegal immigrants will trend Democratic big time, and just on those purely selfish political grounds any Republican with common sense should be against it, not to mention principles such as rule of law and secure borders against drugs, terrorism, and illegals.
And those votes will be the votes that finalize our loss of the democracy.
“Complacency & Apathy
About the time our original thirteen states adopted their
new constitution i n 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish
history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this
to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some
2,000 years earlier:
“A democracy is always temporary in nature;
it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.”
“A democracy will continue to exist up until the
time that voters discover they can vote themselves
generous gifts from the public treasury.”
“From that moment on, the majority always vote for
the candidates who promise the most benefits from
the public treasury, with the result that every
democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal
policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
“The average age of the world’s greatest
civilizations from the beginning of history, has
been about 200 year s.”
“During those 200 years, those nations always
progressed through the following sequence:
1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6 from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage”
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University
School of Law, St.Paul, Minnesota, points out
some interesting facts concerning the 2000
Presidential election:
Number of States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29
Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2
Bush: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of
the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by
the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore’s
territory mostly encompassed those citizens living
in government-owned tenements and living off various
forms of government welfare...”
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere
between the “complacency and apathy” phase of
Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy, with some
forty percent of the nation’s population already
having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to
twenty-million criminal invaders called illegal’s and
they vote, then we can say good-bye to the USA in
fewer than five years.”
ping
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