What I find amazing is the only place I have found peeved voters are on FR, I believe they're called "single-issue voters", and if it is true that this vote will be delayed and quite possibly altered in some way, then I'd say the big deal was made for nothing, or it caused the dems to get in line with what is best for America and not their liberal agenda. I can't say it enough, they do have the illegimate authority to bring to the floor or not bring to the floor the daily Senate's business.
Speaking as a black voter, I wasn't pandered too. I actually researched for myself what each party stood for and made my own decision to be affiliated with the Republican party. Despite the stereotypes many of us do actually study for ourselves and choose what's best for our families.
In 2004, as the successful leader of a nation at war, and as an apparent friend of Mexican President Vincente Fox, Bush's percentage of the Hispanic vote should go up, nationally. The "amnesty" provisions in the House version of the immigration bill are not the be-all and end-all of this equation, but just a small part of it.
While I thoroughly agree with those who say, if we're somehow allied with Senator Byrd that something's wrong, I think Byrd's opposition will cause this "amnesty" to be tightened down from the 20% deal that the House passed to maybe a 10% deal.
In the real world, that's okay. We are simply not going to round up and deport all illegal Mexicans in the US. Looked at in purely selfish terms, too many American businesses and farms would fail due to losses of their lowest paid employees -- even here in the mountains of North Carolina -- for that result to be tolerable.
By the way, your equating of the black vote and the Hispanic vote is entirely misplaced. Blacks vote as a block; Hispanics don't. The best Bush can possibly get in 2004 is about 15% of the black vote. But that's okay. Every 1% of the black vote that Bush gets above 10% slices 1% off the margin for any Democratic candidate.
If Bush gets 40% of the Hispanic vote and 15% of the black vote, ANY Democrat in 2004 is dead meat, road kill, yesterday's news, an asterisk in the history books. I think Hiilary! knows that, which is why she'll sit on the sidelines and watch Al Gore auger in and burn, again.
Being an effective President doesn't mean doing everything perfectly in the views of your core supporters (if that were even possible, given the disagreements of various groups). It means picking up the cards you're dealt and playing them better than most.
In war terms, it means winning most battles and losing few soldiers. It does not mean winning evry battle and losing no soldiers. In civilian terms, it means getting most of what you want through Congress, and preventing most of what you don't want. It does not mean getting all that you want through Congress, and preventing all that you don't want.
So far, I give Bush a B+, which is a far cry better than Clinton, who earned something lower than an F, but there isn't any lower grade.
As an earlier poster mentioned, this is chess, not checkers. You only win by concentrating on the 8th or 12th move ahead, not just the 2nd or 3rd one. Bush has grown into the Presidency, which I discuss in my column this week. I'm sure that part of his preparation to get results is the chess strategy of Carl Rove, behind the scenes.
Congressman Billybob