Asunder!

Bush's conservative critics on immigration keep warning that he's destroying the conservative coalition by prompting this fight. I've been a bit skeptical of such claims, since the tendency among people who do politics professionally is always to overblow the everything. But this (via Jonathan Singer) seems real enough: "The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors' rebellion over President Bush's immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times. "

If only the story were in a real newspaper.

Comments

If the story were in a real newspaper,
1) it would be a lie, and
2) noone would read it.

Be happy its there and here.

Sk

Posted by Sk | June 1, 2007 11:24 AM

Yeah, but the Moonie Times is tapped into the belly of the beast. It's like reading Novak -- the policy stuff is not really edifying, but everyone in the movement talks to him, leaks to him, etc. When there is internecine warfare among the winger set he is usually a pretty good guide. Same with the Times.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | June 1, 2007 11:27 AM

Anyone who doubts that the conservative coalition is breaking apart needs to witness the meltdown at Ace of Spades. The Militant Far Right is revolting! Well, OK, they've always been revolting, but you know what I mean.

Hey, if Peggy and her magic dolphins have left the building, she might well have been the one to turn off the lights and lock the door.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 1, 2007 11:41 AM

I have no doubt the Republican grassroots feels very strongly about this issue.

But maybe Democrats in Congress should be asking themselves if voters in purple and red districts elected them to hand out billions in Medicaid and other social welfare benefits to people who didn't follow the rules while doing nothing for private sector middle and working class people. Maybe Democrats who ran on immigration enforcement but didn't mention amnesty at all should be asking themselves this question especially.

A crucial reason I think the Democratic Party became a 45% party by the 1980s was the perception - beginning with the Great Society period - that Democrats represented the interests of the poor, the old, public sector workers, and certain special interests at the expense of the working and middle class majority.

And judging from the legislative priorities of this Congress - giving airport workers union protections, granting amnesty and billions in benefits to illegal immigrations, increasing the federal minimum wage (which is largely a meaningless gesture), giving away billions in corporate welfare - while doing damn near nothing for America's stuggling middle and working class it doesn't seem so far off base to suggest that little has changed.

Posted by Linus | June 1, 2007 12:58 PM

Linus! Glad to see you were able to find a new job so quickly. And you even have to find new talking points.

Posted by RNC | June 1, 2007 1:06 PM

pace la follette progressive, my favorite moments of this whole spectacle have to do with the sight of the likes of noonan professing shock, shock that george bush might smear and misrepresent the people who don't support his position 100%.

RNC, nicely put.

Posted by howard | June 1, 2007 2:27 PM

"Linus! Glad to see you were able to find a new job so quickly. And you even have to find new talking points."

Thanks! Glad to see that arse fucking the middle class is - per most of the time - a bipartisan enterprise.

Posted by Linus | June 1, 2007 4:17 PM

It's kinda funny when people complain that the Democrats do nothing to help out the middle class and then diss ideas like raising the minimum wage or strengthening the welfare state. Beyond that, the only thing left are still rather welfare state-ish, such as universal healthcare or having the government take on the pensions burden instead of employers. The last things left in the bag are 1) education, which the Dems get criticized for for focusing too much on and 2) protectionism, which would only really make a handful of workers richer while making all of our other workers poorer.

Posted by Reality Man | June 1, 2007 5:02 PM

Reality Man:

"education, which the Dems get criticized for for focusing too much on"

Really? I would think Dems get criticized more for toeing the teachers unions' line and objecting to any sort of accountability for schools, merit pay for teachers, higher pay for teachers in harder-to-recruit fields (e.g., math), charter schools, etc. But I agree, Dems do place to much emphasis on education, which isn't a panacea, and their perennial zeal to flood higher education with cash (through student loans, grants, etc.) has led to considerable tuition inflation.

Posted by Fred | June 1, 2007 8:11 PM

Matt,

You should have read Peggy Noonan's column from last week: Slow Down and Absorb:
Open borders? Mass deportations? How about some common sense instead?

That one was much better. Peggy got in her pro-immigrant bona fides:

"Everyone else who comes here works hard, grindingly hard, and I admire them. But it's more than that, I love them and I'm rooting for them. When I see them in church (it is Filipino women who taught me the right posture for prayer; Central Americans helped teach me the Bible) I want to kiss their hands. I want to say, "Thank you." They have enriched my life, and our country's."

And then she bitch-slapped Bush on the immigration bill:

"Naturally I hope the new immigration bill fails. It is less a bill than a big dirty ball of mischief, malfeasance and mendacity, with a touch of class malice, and it's being pushed by a White House that is at once cynical and inept."

Then she offered, some common sense-and-compassionate suggestions for moving forward. Check it out.

Posted by Fred | June 1, 2007 8:21 PM

Fred has time on his hands after being banned from Ezra's site, as I predicted.

Fred, on behalf of a host of hard working teachers, let me just say fuck off.

Report me to the FBI if that offends you pin dick.

Posted by Klein's tiny left nut | June 1, 2007 10:00 PM

"It's kinda funny when people complain that the Democrats do nothing to help out the middle class and then diss ideas like raising the minimum wage or strengthening the welfare state."

The minimum wage has never made anyone middle class in this country, but that's beside the point. I'm not objecting to raising it (although I think it's largely a symbolic gesture) much as I don't object to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security (and don't think any of those things are symbolic gestures) and am optimistc that there will someday be universal health care in America (although - you know - the devil is in the details, and I don't especially trust our pols to get it right), but there are millions and millions of middle and working class Americans whose real wages have been (with the exception of the late 90s) stagnant for more or less a generation, who are paying the highest level of taxation in American history, who struggle with the high cost of housing, health care, higher education, and even the basics like food, not to mention all the other crap that elected and appointed officials are entrusted to solve but are not: traffic (anyone live practically anywhere in California?), the threat of losing the job in the thing you got spent tens of thousands of dollars getting a graduate degree in to some guy in India, and - shit - a whole lot of other things I can't even think of right now.

About the time Nancy Pelosi was having her first martini for the day, I was standing in a parking lot talking on a pay phone (cell phone dead zone) to my insurance company (or more accurately waiting for the next available customer service representative to take my call for like an hour) because the people at the pharmacy couldn't find my name in the system, and were told by the pharmacy guy at the insurance company that I had only medical coverage but not prescription coverage (which was utterly false). It took me over an hour that I should have been in the office working on a completely fucked up product that was supposed to be released like - I don't know - before now and still leaks memory all over the place and it isn't really my fault. And you have to understand: I'm lucky (at least with respect to my insurance). I have a great ppo, probably one of the best in the state.

But, you know, let's see...what else: the car I was driving today has a peristent vacuum leak which I just spent 500 bucks like two weeks ago getting fixed and the brakes make a terrible sound when I come to a stop. My next door neighbor is an asshole and I have a big, German temper and am liable to explode at you if you're an asshole to me in person - which I did this afternoon when I got home. That was right about the time Nancy Pelosi was on her fifth or sixth martini for the day.

I suppose I could ask my people to call the insurance company for me, have them take the car for a second round of vacuum testing and another 500 bucks down the tube, have them deal with my asshole next door neighbor and this thing that was supposed to be released with the memory leak, but unlike members of Congress I don't have people to call and I don't think almost anyone understand what it's like not to have people to call, or care.

Posted by Linus | June 2, 2007 12:23 AM

Did you purchase a new construction home recently? Have you dined in a restaurant in the last few years? Do you buy chicken from Tyson or Perdue? Do you enjoy fruits and vegetables grown in California?
If so, you should be ashamed of yourself for promoting the use of illegal immigrant labor.
If you are serious about solving the immigration problem only purchase goods and services from businesses that employ only citizens and legal residents. Also, make sure their suppliers and any firm they contract with does likewise.
You can be part of the solution.

Posted by you are part of the problem | June 2, 2007 2:26 AM