Bush is kicking away his base

The conservative movement that elected Ronald Reagan twice, George H.W. Bush once, and George W. Bush II twice, is essentially a movement of grass-rooters who don't like to take orders from the top and who revolt when they believe they are betrayed or bossed by those they elected. That's why the grass roots abandoned the first George Bush when he reneged on his "no new taxes, read my lips" promise.

The tough political tactics used by union bosses and Democratic machine bosses simply don't sit well with conservative Republicans.

Resentment against the current Bush administration is still festering about the combination of threats and bribes that pushed through close votes in Congress to pass the costly Medicare prescription drug bill in 2003 and Central American Trade Agreement in 2004.

Maybe the intra-party divisions between fiscal vs. Big Government conservatives that lay behind the former battle, and between pro vs. anti free-traders in the latter battle, were evenly balanced enough that the Bush administration alienated only a handful of Republicans. But in demanding a guest-worker plan that smacks of amnesty, the Bush administration is taking the unpopular side of a party division that is at least 80-20.

In December, the House passed a border-security bill authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.. The bill rejected support for Bush's guest worker/amnesty plan. Since 88 percent of Republican House members voted for this bill, that should have been a wake-up call to the president.

Shortly thereafter, Arizona Republican National Committee member Randy Pullen gathered enough signatures to present a resolution to the Republican National Committee at its Jan. 19-20 meeting in Washington, D.C., which endorsed border security measures and opposed any guest worker plan.

A competing resolution endorsing border security plus a guest worker plan was floated by the RNC's Bill Crocker of Texas. After he realized the strong tide against guest workers, he began negotiating a compromise with Pullen, and one version of the compromise eliminated guest workers.

When the RNC resolutions committee met Jan. 19, the chairman, Idaho's Blake Hall, brought up the original Crocker resolution that included guest worker language. An attempt by one committeeman to substitute the Crocker-Pullen compromise was ruled out of order, and then a motion to remove the guest worker language was voted down 5 to 3.

That evening, the Bush administration sent in its big guns, Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., to insist that RNC members support the guest worker plan or else they would be labeled disloyal and disrespectful of President Bush. Republican Party chairman Ken Mehlman made the rounds to regional caucuses to demand approval of Bush's guest worker plan and defeat of the Pullen resolution.

At the RNC meeting on Jan. 20, the Hall-approved resolution was incorporated and passed as part of a package of nine resolutions in order to preclude a specific vote on the border security-guest worker issue. The Pullen resolution did not come up.

This donnybrook happened on the same day that the New York Times reported that 18,207 illegal immigrants from nations other than Mexico have been the beneficiaries of the Bush administration's scandalous "catch and release" procedure in the three months since Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff promised to "return every single illegal entrant - no exceptions." Catch and release means that the illegal immigrants from nations other than Mexico are not deported. But after they are apprehended, they are released on their own recognizance with instructions to reappear a few weeks later, with everybody understanding that they will disappear into the U.S. population.

Also on the same day, Lou Dobbs reported on CNN-TV that Mexican troops are crossing our southern border twice a month in uniform, in military vehicles and carrying military weapons. The Bush administration's response to this invasion is don't ask, don't tell.

It's bad enough that President Bush is pursuing a vastly unpopular guest worker-amnesty plan, but the administration's bullying to prevent debate and a vote by the full Republican National Committee was intolerable. It forecasts the sort of intimidation we can anticipate in the upcoming Senate debate about Bush's guest worker plan.

Why are President Bush and Karl Rove so tone deaf on this issue? Some speculate that the Bush administration is in the pocket of big business lobbying interests that want the cheap labor made available by the government's failure to enforce our immigration laws.

Others speculate that Bush and Rove are hallucinating that Hispanics will vote Republican. That won't happen; Hispanics vote 55 to 75 percent Democratic because, since they are mostly in the low-income sector of our economy, they vote for the party that promises the social benefits of the welfare state, not for the party that pretends to support fiscal integrity and small government.

The administration-imposed RNC defeat of the majority view of Republicans is bad news for the 2006 congressional elections. Bush is alienating his political base and creating what one RNC member calls an "enthusiasm deficit." In the words of the old adage, elephants (i.e., conservative Republicans) never forget.

The Crocker-Pullen Compromise Resolution that was ruled out of order:

RESOLUTION URGING IMMEDIATE CONGRESSIONAL ACTION

TO SECURE OUR BORDERS AND DEAL WITH ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

WHEREAS, The Republican Party supports legal immigration to our country and acknowledges the tremendous contributions made by legal immigrants throughout our history to our economy and society, and

WHEREAS, The Republican Party Platform specifically states that we must strengthen our Border Patrol to stop illegal crossings and that we will equip the Border Patrol with the tools, technologies, structures, and sufficient force necessary to secure the border, and

WHEREAS, it is reliably estimated that at least eleven million citizens of other countries have entered and currently remain in the United States in violation of applicable immigration and naturalization laws; and

WHEREAS, the ability of such persons to illegally enter and remain in the Unites States presents a grave risk to the security of the United States; and

WHEREAS, in many instances the resources of national, state and local governmental entities are overburdened and depleted or exhausted by attempts to deal with and meet the needs of such persons after they illegally enter the United States; and

WHEREAS, Border security and immigration law enforcement are critical elements in America’s national security, and

WHEREAS, Strengthening the capacity of law enforcement to apprehend persons entering our country illegally is essential to protecting the sovereignty of the United States, and

WHEREAS, Immigration enforcement training needs to be provided to state and local law enforcement agencies to strengthen their enforcement of immigration laws, and

WHEREAS, Withholding United States citizenship from children born to illegal aliens will remove another incentive to enter our country illegally, and

WHEREAS, All employers in the United States should be held responsible for hiring illegal aliens and be subjected to substantial fines for doing so, and

WHEREAS, Working or residing illegally in our country must not establish welfare rights or benefits of any kind, and

WHEREAS, Any guest worker plan that allows illegal aliens to remain and work in our country will only result in more illegal immigration, and

WHEREAS, Respect for the rule of law is a bedrock principle of our country, our culture and our posterity, and

WHEREAS, Republican Party leaders across the country are constantly and vigorously confronted with demands that appropriate legislative action be taken to address and resolve the problems of illegal immigration; therefore be it

RESOLVED that the Members of the Republican National Committee urge that the Congress of the United States, as a matter of the highest priority, take all necessary steps to provide appropriate authority and means to accomplish the following:

(1) Effectively close the borders of the United States to illegal immigration and all other illegal crossings, using our military if necessary;

(2) Identify all persons who are currently in the United States in violation of immigration and naturalization laws and arrange for their return to their country of origin as expeditiously as reasonably possible;

(3) Preclude automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to persons in the United States in violation of immigration and naturalization laws;

(4) Withhold all federal funds from any city, state or local jurisdiction that acts as a sanctuary for illegal aliens and prohibits or thwarts enforcement of existing immigration laws; and

(5) After effectively closing our borders to illegal entry, revise our present work visa program to remove the means by which it is abused and allow workers from other countries with verifiable backgrounds to enter the United States to work for a fixed period of time, requiring a reliable means to continually verify the identity and location of each such worker, and providing no preference for those persons presently in the United States illegally.

Bill Crocker

Republican National Committeeman for Texas

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