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It’s an unfortunate
fact of political life that’s taken me some time to get used to, but here it
is: If a Republican politician is uncommonly good on both economics and social
issues, he will probably be terrible on immigration.
Think Dick Armey, Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake and Jack Kemp in his
better days. All strong economic
and social conservatives; all weak on immigration control.
And that’s just
conservative Republicans. Moderate
to liberal Republicans tend to be even worse.
Flake’s guest-workers program, one of the pieces of legislation
floating around that corresponds fairly closely with the Bush administration’s
amnesty-light proposal, is co-sponsored by his fellow Arizona Republicans Sen.
John McCain and Rep. Jim Kolbe. While
there are many honorable
exceptions, the GOP as a whole has been useless, and sometimes pernicious,
on immigration. Yet most
rank-and-file Republican voters take a more sensible position.
They believe that immigration should be legal and controlled, occurring
at a manageable level accompanied by assimilation.
They are receptive to immigrants who actually intend to give their
allegiance to America, but don’t see any need to import poverty, cultural
balkanization and sociopolitical fragmentation. In other words, the
GOP’s grassroots conservative base approaches immigration with different
motives than the cheap-labor lobby, transnational
progressives, multiculturalists – and many of the Republican candidates
they end up voting for. This
discontinuity between the party’s leadership and its voters has only gotten
worse under George W. Bush, who has maintained a stubborn infatuation with the
idea of offering “temporary” worker status to millions of illegal aliens and
extending that status to an apparently limitless number of willing foreign
workers all over the world – only after their prospective U.S. employers have
verified that the jobs they’re being offered are of the kind that Americans
just won’t do, of course. There is much that
can be said for Karl Rove’s political acumen.
His grassroots turnout strategies in the 2004 campaign certainly paid
off. But immigration, an issue Rove seems to mistakenly see as the
key to a Hispanic Republican majority, is testing
the Architect’s limits. Republicans
with their ears closer to the ground –and the conservative grassroots –
don’t see amnesty and guest workers as winning political issues. According to a Washington
Post report last week, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay distanced himself
slightly from the president on immigration reform. DeLay’s proposal wasn’t much better. He would offer illegal aliens guest-worker status, but only
if they go home first. It doesn’t
advantage lawbreakers as much as Bush’s version, but many current illegals
would probably still see their status regularized after a visit back home and
overall it would increase immigration. In
the New York Times account, the
Republican leader suggests it as a possible modification of the White House
proposal. DeLay’s
arm-twisting tactics may have earned him the nickname the Hammer, but he also
has a good read on the House Republican Conference.
If he is suggesting compromise, it is a good indication that the
president’s immigration-liberalization plan cannot pass as presently outlined
because it lacks GOP support. Rush Limbaugh, as
attentive to the opinion trends of right-of-center Americans as any commentator,
has also spoken of a grassroots revolt against the party establishment on
immigration. In late January, he
warned that the president’s approach to the issue jeopardized his initiatives
on Social Security and tax reform. Limbaugh
went further to contend that porous borders threatened our national sovereignty
and the electoral coalition that supports the Republican Party. The latter point was
also made in a National Review cover story at the end of last year, written by
David Frum rather than one of the magazine’s usual immigration restrictionists.
“There's no issue where the beliefs and interests of the party
rank-and-file diverge more radically from the beliefs and interests of the
party's leaders,” Frum wrote. “Immigration for Republicans in 2005 is what
crime was for Democrats in 1965 or abortion in 1975: a vulnerable point at which
a strong-minded opponent could drive a wedge that would shatter the GOP.” Even voices on the Wall
Street Journal editorial page have taken notice. In an Opinion Journal column
following Limbaugh’s volley, John Fund urged “measures to address the
legitimate concerns of Americans who worry the federal government has completely
lost control of the borders.” While
he mainly criticized serious immigration reforms and downplayed the electoral
clout of restrictionists, Fund implicitly acknowledged the gap between the
GOP’s elites and the voters they need to remain in power. The immigration debate has become the latest struggle for the soul of the GOP, with the party’s majorities potentially hanging in the balance. Time will tell whose lead Republican officeholders decide to follow – the Hammer or the Architect’s.
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