Posted on 06/27/2007 7:40:17 AM PDT by 300magnum
WASHINGTON - President Bush, short on political capital and time, is devoting much of what's left of his term in office to getting an immigration deal.
Starting with an April 9 speech in Arizona, in which he talked tough about border security and prodded Congress to get moving, Bush has staged a dozen immigration events. That's not counting his four radio addresses on the topic in that time, or his phone calls to lawmakers, or his bold prediction that he'd see reporters at the bill-signing for a bill that seemed dead.
His agenda reflects that immigration is a White House priority for multiple reasons.
It is deeply important to the president, a former Texas governor who sees the status quo on immigration as a failure for the nation and a looming disaster for his party. It is seen as a major legislative victory within reach. And it is seen as urgent — now or never for him, most likely.
So each day, a White House strategy team weighs how to maintain momentum on a bill offering legal status to millions of unlawful immigrants.
A small, core group of officials — representing policy, communications, strategy and legislative offices — organizes the approach.
There is no war room, per se, but rather meetings held in locations at the White House and on Capitol Hill. The participants vary and overlap. The president gets involved when his participation is deemed to have the most impact. His voice is the loudest, but not one to be overused, the strategy goes.
The signals often come from Candida Wolff, Bush's legislative affairs chief.
"She hollers when she wants the president's assistance in speaking to a particular member of Congress," said Joel Kaplan, the deputy chief of staff for policy. "And I expect that she'll holler a few more times before all is said and done."
Meanwhile, two of Bush's Cabinet members have made almost a full-time job of lobbying for the bill. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez may as well be considered tenants on Capitol Hill, Kaplan quipped.
When the immigration bill stalled in the Senate, Bush got personally involved in resurrecting it.
He called Republican Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona, Trent Lott of Mississippi and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky while in Europe. On his flight back to the U.S., he called Kyl and Democratic Sens. Ken Salazar of Colorado and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Then, the next day, he made a rare visit to Capitol Hill to lobby Republican senators at a closed-door meeting.
The rescue effort had at least some effect; later that week, Senate leaders reached a deal to get the bill back up for debate.
"Even a weakened president is a potent political force," said Republican strategist Rich Galen. "He may well get something out of this. I was with everyone else when the thing got pulled from the (Senate) floor, saying, 'Well, that's that.' But here it is again."
The Senate voted Tuesday to revive the bill. It must still overcome another make-or-break vote as early as Thursday that will also require the backing of 60 senators. And there is no guarantee that it will ultimately attract even the simple majority it needs to pass.
Bush is still making calls to senators, although the White House picks and chooses when it will disclose details.
"He's been on the phone," spokesman Tony Snow said Tuesday. "I'm not going to tell you how many or who he has talked to."
The president, not surprisingly, projects confidence. He talks of when, not if, the Senate will pass a bill to his liking in the coming days.
"When successful in the Senate, we'll be reconvening to figure out how to get the bill out of the House," he told advocates of his plan.
Trouble hovers there, too. Underscoring the intraparty fighting over immigration, House Republicans meeting in a private conference took the rare step Tuesday evening of voting overwhelmingly to oppose the Senate measure.
In his June 12 visit to the Capitol, Bush was gracious and grateful to fellow Republicans. At other times, his strategy has been more blunt.
Along the way, Bush has accused critics of the legislation of not reading the details of the bill; of potentially lacking courage; of engaging in scare tactics; of searching for a reason to oppose it; and of not doing what's right for America.
With all this, Bush's aides scoff at criticism that Bush should be more personally engaged in lobbying for the bill. So does he.
"My administration is deeply involved in the issue," Bush said. "I feel passionate about the issue."
(This version CORRECTS Galen's quote to say a weakened president is a "potent" force, instead of "potential" force.) )
ping
In June 2004, Bush signed the Social Security Totalization Agreement with Mexico. Up until then, he made no secrets about his desire to legalize Mexican illegal aliens.
He listened to your votes in November 2004 as a mandate to accomplish that goal.
Maybe next time, you'll be a little less cavalier about for whom you cast your vote.
I agree with you completely. This immigration bill would never have been introduced by a Democrat President-this close to an election. Also ‘ketchup boy’ would have had to worry about re-election. He wouldn’t be a lame duck like President Bush. No-by continuing to vote for this party-GOP- we give tacit approval to their behavior-No More. I am done.
Okay, this isn’t a Republican bill.
Unfortunately, it is a Republican bill. It's Bush's bill all the way.
That doesn't make it a conservative bill.
Yes it is a Republican bill. It could not have been passed without help from Bush and the Republican leadership-sorry. The GOP has foisted this on us and will pay dearly for their treason.
There will be no Republican base in my opinion. When hard-core Repubs such as myself are willing to in essence throw their votes away on 3rd party candidates. The GOP is cooked in 2008 and probably in 2012. They think we hate, fear Hillary Clinton enough to put this behind us and vote for them. Boy, will they be surprised when this doesn’t happen.
And the choice would be........................
The point is that we knew Bush would do this when we voted for him; he didn’t hide on any of these issues like a lot of politicians do. I really doubt that Weird Al and Ketchup Boy would have given us tax cuts and the subsequent economic recovery or any decent judges or even a halfway decent response to Islamo-terror. But the Europeons would have liked us better. So immigration turns out to be a good issue to fight the president on
This is not true. President Bush always said he was against amnesty. Yesterday, President Bush admitted this bill gives amnesty to illegals despite Tony Snow’s pitiful attempts at explaining his remarks-mispoke. Thus President Bush said what he needed to say in order to get elected-he lied. I thought he was a man of integrity; he is not.
All this nonsense about how he cares for the poor illegals etc...nonsense. This is about cheap labor for his corporate buddies who want to shift the cost of healthcare, social services,schools etc from corporation to the taxpayers . It truly is corporate wellfare.
Meanwhile, America becomes a cesspool with millions of very poor workers-viewed as secondclass citizen. It’s a form of slavery-disgraceful.
That’s been the problem; he thinks this isn’t amnesty and that bullshit about “the jobs Americans won’t do” really pisses me off. However, we have better chance fighting him on this than we would have had with Weird Al or Ketchup Boy. (ref Clinton, NAFTA, GATT)
I do not believe a sitting Dem President up for re-election in 2008 would have supported an amnesty bill-not with something like 75% Americans against it. Ironically-the guy we trusted to keep this country safe will cause more damage than Jimmy Carter.
LOL - nah, a long way to go to reach Carter or even Johnson or Clinton proportions. But a rat president would have been able to shepherd the illegals bill through pretty easily as Ol’ Slick showed us with GATT and NAFTA. Bush will have problems.
Thank you.
I think the damage this bill will cause is huge. First, we will end up with national healthcare. With millions of unisured people who are used to national health added to this country it’s a done deal. Next, social security is going to take a huge hit-it was already in bad shape to begin with. Public education is alread mediocre and expensive. It will get worse. In Georgia, we have had great difficulties in educating non-english speaking children. Wages will decline and kids will have trouble landing jobs as well. My son (17) was turned down at the local MacDonalds for a job because he is not bilingual. Then you have a fair number of Mexicans who believe the southwest should really belong to them...not the US. This bill is a disaster. It’s implications are horrific and lasting.
This is why the country is in the state it is.
What do you mean, 'we'? I didn't vote for him in 2000 or 2004 because I knew what he wanted.
I really doubt that Weird Al and Ketchup Boy would have given us tax cuts and the subsequent economic recovery or any decent judges or even a halfway decent response to Islamo-terror. But the Europeons would have liked us better. So immigration turns out to be a good issue to fight the president on
By how much did your taxes go down because of Bush's tax cuts? Mine went up. So did the cost of gas. Funny how the supply of oil went down after he invaded Iraq, isn't it?
Economic recovery? It was Bush himself that caused the sub-prime debacle by enacting the New Alliance Task Force in 2001. This directed the FDIC to relax banking rules that allowed Mexican illegal aliens to obtain US bank accounts and along with them, auto and home loans. He orderd the border patrol to stand down and relaxed border enforcement to allow millions of Mexican illegal aliens to overrun the border since he's been in office.
It was his judge, John Paul Stevens who wrote the majority opinion in Kelo vs. New London that gives the green light to cities to take private property from one owner and give it to another.
And now, he refuses to build the fence along the southern border in spite of the fact that he signed the bill into law and wants to give amnesty to 20+ million lawbreakers, not to mention giving US Social Security benefits to the illegals' and their families back home in Mexico.
Sorry, but I'm not nearly as enamored with Bush as you.
Once again, I doubt this bill will pass. It seems your son will have his problems with or without it.
I pay more in taxes because our income went up quite a bit after the diaster of the late 90s. And, as you should know, oil’s not the problem, gasoline is. Enamoured is not the word - he’s done some good and some bad like all politicians. And, as you refused to read before, I give him zero support on the illegals issue. But your welcome to vote for Hilary or Obama or Edwards next time so go for it, knock yourself out.
OOPS - diaster = disaster
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