Posted on 01/31/2006 11:05:56 AM PST by robowombat
Bush is kicking away his base By Phyllis Schlafly
Jan 30, 2006
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.
Phyllis Schlafly is the President and Founder of the Eagle Forum
You answered for me.
It's a long old road down this site.... I have the time
Yes, I've noticed that "unappeasable" is the cute slang-of-choice for those who defend the Administration's do-nothing policy on border control.
You're 'unappeasable' by expecting the law to be enforced- at least in the eyes of those who intend to do nothing, and expect you to put up with it.
That's correct. That doesn't mean though that some of those non US citizens weren't illegally residing here though.
Ok, GH Bush didn't really take a fall in '92. And Perot wasn't a coincidental plant. And Bubba Clinton WAS qualified to be President...
Have it your way.
LOL! You're funny, NooB.
I rather imagine you say that a lot to everything
The big tent ya know?
Funny how the unappeasables are going berzerk right when Bush puts two very Conservative Justices on the bench.
My mother in law got one because she worked his campaign. I wanted one but didn't.
It happens EVERY time. Every time. But you know that too...lol.
Ya think?!
You're right, of course, and then there's the ever loyal band of sycophants who will defend anything their idol does. Some who could plainly see it when Clinton was in office think it is only a Democrat vice.
I'd be glad to draw you a map if it would help.
Alito gets confirmed, Greenspan gets sent out to pasture, and it's the day of the SOTU. It's like the perfect alignment of the planetary system.
Good article. I feel betrayed on the border issue and the free trade stuff. I remember I was talking to my father one night and he told me that he sees President Bush as another President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ). Well, maybe that's a little too far but I do see a few comparisons there. I was listening to a speech by LBJ from 1966 about the Vietnam War and it almost sounded the same as President Bush's 2005/2006 speech on Iraq, there are some uncanny similarities there. Another similaritie is the enlargement of Medicare (although it can't really be avoided in the current climate) where LBJ had it go into effect in 1966 whereas the drug program goes into effect this year, 2006. I support the war on terror although if the election was today, that would be the only reason why I would possibly vote Republican instead of third party.
Phyllis Schlafly v. Howlin.
The defense rests.
Yep...a big tent where people on one side don't really agree with the people on the other. So there will be noise from time to time...
And so much more! It is our rule of law and our health care system and our ability to eliminate socialism and conservative control of the political system and our culture and our national security and our crime rate and education.
It impacts every domestic issue and President Bush is blowing it.
I for one could not be happier. We just need one more justice to go "caput" or resign and we will have the Supremes that will sing!!! Not far off really!!!
I'll take that as a no.
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