Talk radio wins the immigration battle, the GOP loses the war

Too bad for Republicans: the fury of the white, middle-aged, male, talk radio masses has been turned...  against them!

After the Senate vote Thursday, immigration as an issue is dead until after the 2008 elections.

When Bush's immigration push came to shove, talk radio flexed its aging, yet still impressive bluster-muscles, strutted its stuff, and showed it hasn't lost its ability to shepherd small flocks of quaking Republicans off the cliff.

As they were jumping, they handed Bush the painful defeat of his chief domestic policy.

It's a tactical victory- like pissing your pants to stay warm.
~~

Talk radio, and Republicans in this searing process have driven hoards of Hispanics into the welcoming arms of the Democrats.

Latino voters already polled 3-to-1, D's to R's in new polls, but this flaming fight with all the xenophobic, anti-Mexican hot talk has politicized them like never before.

Republican spinster Dick Morris, who has no dog in the fight other than he wants Republicans to win, says "... the price Republicans will pay "is likely to be compounded by the probability that a Democratic Congress and president after the 2008 election will pass some form of immigration reform, probably a bill even more to the liking of the Hispanic community than the Bush proposal Congress just defeated.”

Poll after poll reveals that even Anglos want illegals who are already living here to have a chance at citizenship.

The conservative Wall Street Journal intones, "[Republicans are] caught between a passionate minority of their party -- who oppose any reform that allows illegals a path to citizenship -- and the larger electorate, which is more moderate and wants to solve the problem."

Once again, the moderate majority has been outshouted by the disproportionately loud, talk radio-propelled minority, almost guaranteeing the war they think they've won is already lost.

Agaoin, The Wall Street Journal:

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 to 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.

Meanwhile, as our readers keep pointing out, and our idol Trent Lott has said: maintaining the status quo is really a victory for the illegals, and their employers. They just got a reprieve until probably a more sympathetic Congress can be elected.

You won't be hearing about building The Great Wall of Mexico across the bottom half of the country now- there's no money for it- another fatality caused by the bill's defeat.

As for the business, the immigration is the best thing to happen to talk radio since Hillary Clinton complained about the "vast right-wing conspiracy."

In the last couple of years, talk radio's ratings have fallen, and have been in a malaise.

Right-wing talkers didn't make much of an impression on the 2006 elections, which were a disaster to President Bush, the Republican Party, conservative causes, and the appearance of talk radio clout.

Thursday's vote has enervated Limbaugh, Hannity, Michael Savage and their local clones like Kirby Wilbur, John Carlson, Dori Monsoon, and Frank Shiers.

As Hannity said today: "We are relevant!"

But is their newly-claimed relevance anything but effervescent bluff and bluster?

Comments

[Bobo]

I thought the funds for the wall were already approved though the government was dragging their feet in getting it built. Yeah, who cares about national security.

I must disagree with this statement:
"Once again, the moderate majority has been outshouted by the disproportionately loud"
Polls indicate that citizens were nearly equally divided on this issue.
Heck, the sheer number of calls to congress actually crashed their phone system, I doubt that they were all right wing talk radio junkies.

[joanie]

I listened to callers on CSpan on this also and they were quite divided and a lot of them didn't really understand the legislation. Neither did the host because she said so. I'm not on board . . . and I'm pretty liberal.

[mac]

sweet jesus, could you have ever dreamed 2 years ago that the Republicans could be in such a dill of a pickle?
They had it all. Now they've been splintered by talk radio and this issue, and they have managed to push away so many voters for so many reasons. It is quite amazing.

[chucks]

mac is right on that one. Two years ago, I knew that we would lose the typical third term seats. Really was not ready for the thrashing we took.
But the party has abandoned our core principals.
The Republican party is getting its butt handed to it by the Republican party. The Democrats have had little to do with it. The R's are trying to play the Democrats game by pandering to the zillion splinter groups who want what they have coming to them from the guvment. That is a Democrat power that will never work with conservative voters and many non affiliated voters.
We should just build the damn fence first.
Then we can work with the immigrants who are here now. Assimilate them, deport them, keep them as a permanent underclass and exploit them.

[Someone]

KOMO just reported that a body was found at Mike Webb's house this afternoon.

[Niagara5]

Pop goes the cork. Pour some champagne and let's celebrate. Not the death of the Immigration Bill, but with the defeat of it led by the righties, the Republican Party will not see the White House again for at least 20 years. Karl Rove knows this and that's why Bush has been pushing so hard for the bills passage. The growing Hispanic population in the West will vote Democratic as a bloc and offset the South in the Electoral College for the foreseeable future.
WTG Conservatives. Refuse to compromise and win your battle. You have just lost the war and sealed your fate. Party On !!

[KS]

The people won this battle and the special interest groups and unions lost. This issue transcends party lines. Talk radio happened to be on the correct side in this case.

Building a fence in certain areas would help although you can be sure that corporations/big business don't want it. The Democrats were hoping in a sick way that the bill would pass so that they would get more voters, which would happen. The Republicans sort of figured out that people were pissed off at this bill, but am not sure where this will go from here. Maybe pieces of it will be brought up next year. The vote today saved Bush's a$$ from going down as the worst president in history - but he doesn't get it - big surprise !

[Plutarch]

envervate?

en'er·va'tion n., en'er·va'tive adj., en'er·va'tor n.

Usage Note: Sometimes people mistakenly use enervate to mean "to invigorate" or "to excite" by assuming that this word is a close cousin of the verb energize. In fact enervate does not come from the same source as energize (Greek energos, "active"). It comes from Latin nervus, "sinew." Thus enervate means "to cause to become 'out of muscle'," that is, "to weaken or deplete of strength."

[cowpotpi3]

KS are you sure the "people won" on this one? What people do you reference? I do believe that you have skewed version of reality (listening to talk radio?) on this. Most people DO support reform and do not take the approach that you appear to advocate. Of course, you may be casting this as "the evil Democrats want total amnesty and to open the floodgates ."

Bush will go down as the worst president ever anyway, why do you think even HE believes this bill could have saved his legacy? Are you a person or a universal translator for right wing pundits?

[John Sheridan]

I think in the long run Mexican and Hispanic voters who have a conscience will consider voting Republican. Afterall, why would they be mad about America's rule of law that asks people to become citizens legally? Jumping over or crawling under a fence illegally to attain amnesty ahead of people who wait in line the honest way is not an honorable trait to be proud of and enough of a reason to vote democratic!!

And most Mexicans and Hispanics and Latinos believe in God and working hard and dream of owning a business the old fashioned way with pride, and honesty, not deceipt.

Mexico, believe it or not, does protect its' southern border from Central America! And they have strict laws with punishable consequences against offenders.

Those who come to America the legal way are welcome. No other country on earth has our diversity and tolerance. And we have freedom of religion and creativity that keeps the United States as the most desireable place to live for a reason.

John Sheridan

[KS]

John Sheridan - agree and disagree - except the legal Hispanics only voted 34% Republican in the last election and too much generalization about Republicans good, Democrats bad. Why polarize like that ? the reason that politics is so screwed up.

cpp3: Bush is in the hip pocket of corporations - that is what he based his legacy on. Anyone who supported this bill supported the corporations and the special interest groups. In the eyes of special interest groups - anyone who didn't support it was a racist.

You know and I know that many mainstream Democrats would have supported this bill, because they know that the additional votes that slip through and count would run approx. 4:1 Democrat. I don't want them using our services at taxpayer's expense, without having pay for it themselves - except in cases of legitimate necessity/emergency. If you supported Comprehensive Immigration Reform in its form, you were on the side of the corporations, which leftist blog readers and newspapers call evil along with the Republican Party. Most newspaper headlines had it; " Immigration Bill fails handing Bush a defeat" I don't disagree with that except that they conveniently left out the Senate leadership - Reid.

[KS]

John Sheridan - agree and disagree - except the legal Hispanics only voted 34% Republican in the last election and too much generalization about Republicans good, Democrats bad. Why polarize like that ? the reason that politics is so screwed up.

cpp3: Bush is in the hip pocket of corporations - that is what he based his legacy on. Anyone who supported this bill supported the corporations and the special interest groups. In the eyes of special interest groups - anyone who didn't support it was a racist.

You know and I know that many mainstream Democrats would have supported this bill, because they know that the additional votes that slip through and count would run approx. 4:1 Democrat. I don't want them using our services at taxpayer's expense, without having pay for it themselves - except in cases of legitimate necessity/emergency. If you supported Comprehensive Immigration Reform in its form, you were on the side of the corporations, which leftist blog readers and newspapers call evil along with the Republican Party. Most newspaper headlines had it; " Immigration Bill fails handing Bush a defeat" I don't disagree with that except that they conveniently left out the Senate leadership - Reid.

[don]

You guys missed something. The Immigration Reform effort was, when all the shouting was done, really another victim of the Iraq war. The reason is that the wingnuts will drone on about last month's want-ads, or the small print on their Viagra bottles...ANYTHING...anything, just so they don't have to talk about their past Iraq stupidity. And then, along comes a chance to bring out their fearful, xeonphobic, and (let's face it) their bigoted sides...who could resist? This immigrant stuff is good for another month or six weeks. Then they'll find something else to stir up their angry white men...-Don

[sparky]

Very astute observation. I agree

[KS]

Bush was stupid about his vision of the Iraq War. He was also stupid about his vision of Immigration Reform.

"And then, along comes a chance to bring out their fearful, xeonphobic, and (let's face it) their bigoted sides...who could resist? "

Another lame, broad brush stereotypical comment, similar to; Democrats - evil, Republicans - good, from John Sheridan. Right - Blame it all on "angry" white men - are you a member of La Raza ? How about substanative instead of baseless, drive-by comments like that ? Boring, boring......