04/27/2013
Signs are growing that some Republicans can count!
WASHINGTON — Some feisty Republicans are challenging a claim widely held among GOP leaders that the party must support more liberal immigration laws if it’s to be more competitive in presidential elections.
These doubters say the Republican establishment has the political calculation backward. Immigration “reform,” they say, will mean millions of new Democratic-leaning voters by granting citizenship to large numbers of Hispanic immigrants now living illegally in the United States …
Strategists in both parties say several factors, including income levels, would make many, and probably most, newly enfranchised immigrants pro-Democratic, at least for a time.
Rebellious Republicans say immigration bill will hurt, not help, GOP in future elections, AP, Washington Post, April 27 2013
Apparently this news was so shocking to AP, and such is the power of established templates in journalism, that the story spends most of its time repeating pro-Amnesty arguments. It also makes this stupid mistake:
Politically, Republicans face two bad options.
They can try to improve relations with existing Latino voters by backing a plan that seems likely to add many Democratic-leaning voters in the years ahead. Or they can stick with a status quo in which their presidential nominees are losing badly among the electorate’s fastest-growing segment.
No, numbskulls, there’s a third option! — end immigration, close the the anchor baby loophole, and eliminate the illegal presence through enforcement and strategic deportation! That would have the additional advantage of rallying white (formerly known as American) voters, which is what the GOP really needs to do.
However, AP does have a telling interview with Mike McKenna, who we have previously noted as that rare thing, a righteous Republican consultant:
In an interview, McKenna said Republican leaders are embracing Rubio’s plan without sufficient data on where it might lead. “I think about two months from now, the folks in the establishment are going to wish they hadn’t started this conversation,” McKenna said.
Party leaders erred, he said, by couching the immigration debate in political rather than moral terms. “The argument that it’s going to be politically advantageous is not going to be sustainable over time,” McKenna said.
Emphasis added. It was McKenna who we quoted previously providing this memorable summary
“You can support immigration reform for moral reasons, for philosophical reasons, or for economic reasons. But if you are a Republican and supporting it for political reasons, you are an idiot who cannot read or understand survey data.”
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