Immigration Bill, Part 2

[John Kilduff]

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I don't understand Bush staying with this so doggedly. Nor do I understand his taking on the "loud people" on talk radio that were largely responsible for his being president in the first place. I suppose the fact that he's a lame duck plays into it, but still it baffles me.

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You find this surprising? He's an intensely idealistic president, and he ignores advice like it's his job. He basically ruined his party's electoral prospects in '06 (and possibly '08) by refusing to draw things down in Iraq.

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Bush has to stay with this so doggedly because allowing the right to control this issue will ruin his party's electoral prospects far beyond '08.

The Tom Tancredos of the world are a cancer to the GOP. For the long term health of the party, President Bush essentially has to take on the rabid talk radio crowd because of the damage they're doing to the GOP's long term electoral prospects:

The WSJ chronicles the dilemma:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110010263

<font color="#666666">"The longer term danger is that the GOP is sending a message to Latinos that it doesn't want them in the party. And if that message sticks, Republicans could put themselves back in minority party status for a generation or more. Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority in the country, and their voting numbers continue to grow. Hispanics were estimated to be 8% of the electorate in 2006, compared with 6% in 2004 and 5.5% in 2000. Census data show that the number of Latino voters could rise to 10% or more by 2008. The demographic reality is that the GOP can't be a majority party with Anglo-Saxon votes alone.

Like most voters, Hispanics care about more issues than immigration. But also like most voters, they take pride in their cultural identity and will reject candidates who send a message of hostility to their very presence in America. They know that when Tom Tancredo calls for an immigration "time out," he's not talking about the Irish. He means no more Mexicans, Hondurans or other Hispanics. If the GOP wants to be deserted by Hispanics for the next few election cycles, that sort of talk should do the trick."</font>


In essence, Rove and the forward thinkers in the party know that letting the GOP base control the party's immigration policy (and talking points) are a recipe for long-term disaster. Hence why Bush has to go to war with them.

The demographic math is written on the wall. Wooing Hispanic voters are integral to the viability of both parties going forward, and the Tancredo/NRO/talk radio wing of the right could do irreparable harm to the party going forward if they're allowed to control the agenda on this issue.

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Maybe so, but what about the notion of BOTH parties representing the will of the people (as they're generally supposed to, being, after all, representatives of the people)? I think most Republicans and Democrats (regular citizens, not Congressmen) favor enforcement of existing immigration laws and tougher controls on immigration. If both parties' representatives would take a stance of representing the majority wishes of the American people, neither party would suffer relatively to the other party on the issue.

I'd like to bring up an ancillary point that disturbs and puzzles me a bit, too: if either party takes a stance against illegal (or legal) immigration, the claim is that it will drive Latino immigrants away from that party. Maybe so. But immigrants are supposed to become Americans, are they not, with their primary new loyalty and allegiance being to America, is that not correct? That's what the immigration process is all about, isn't it? Yet if Latino immigrants tend to place their own ethnicity as a higher allegiance than their allegiance to America, how does that fit in with the ideal of immigration?

Further, Anglos in the USA seem to be bending over backwards to not be racist on such matters, but are Latino immigrants typically more concerned about allegiance to their own race/ethnicity than they are with allegiance to America or becoming Americans? If they are not more concerned with that, then how does the WSJ argument hold any water, that they will be driven away from a party that wants to enforce immigration laws? If on the other hand they are more concerned with allegiance to their own race/ethnicity than with allegiance to America, then the WSJ argument is totally correct, and they will indeed be driven away from the party that is not pro-immigration.

Does becoming an American no longer means having one's primary allegiance switch to America? I'm not saying that is true of most new Latino immigrants (legal or illegal), rather, I'm asking. If it is true, then the WSJ argument succeeds strongly. If it is false, then the WSJ argument suffers from some holes.

Please everybody think this through a while before responding, and please try to respond analytically. I'm posing these questions because some things really don't appear to be fully adding up. Thanks to everyone for reading and thanks for thinking this through with me.