Immigration Bill Dies

Senator Ted Kennedy did his best with what he had, but it just wasn't enough.
One reason is that the immigration bill was rolled out in a terrible fashion.
Obviously, the senators knew some of what they'd face, so they thought secret discussions then surprising everyone
would give people less time to push back. It was a miscalculation of monstrous
proportions. Kennedy's heart was in the right place, but both parties wildly underestimated
the importance of this issue to people on all sides of the debate. Then there are the Independents like Lou Dobbs, a man as responsible for the bill's failure as anyone. Frankly, I actually like Dobbs, unlike many on our side of the political spectrum, because he's done more to illuminate the issue of outsourcing and the collapse of the middle than anyone else in the media world, but his hyperbole on the border issue was absolutely manic. As for
the conservative base, well, their xenophobia and paranoia about immigrants makes
it hard to reason with them; that and the fact they're afraid that all the potential legal immigrants will vote Democratic.

Trent Lott's floor remarks in the Senate this morning were not certainly designed to assure Republicans that their concerns on border security and illegal immigrants from countries with jihadist networks were being addressed in a serious fashion. … .. Hugh Hewitt

Nice try, Hugh. But it's a lot less about “jihadist networks” than it is about voting majorities.

Mr. Hewitt then offers Lott's words in full, along with audio and a few comments of his
own. Want to know what's missing? Come on, you can guess. The word “employers”
is nowhere to be seen in his post. It's likely the right would never have agreed
to such strictures on their biggest base. Wingnut radio barely mentions the word. But as I've been saying for ages, if you don't target employers you might as well not even make the effort.

The bill was also gigantic, so it couldn't be sold. It didn't help that Rudy and Romney
went blathering on about I.D.'s and ideas that show racism and classicism, as well as
Slick Mitt's usual denseness about anything complex. Pander was the word of the day for GOP presidential candidates.

Even as the bill was heading to defeat, presidential rival Rudolph W. Giuliani criticized McCain for saying the bill had not been everything he would have wanted. “Then he should have written the one he wanted and pushed that,” Giuliani said on Sean Hannity's radio show. A Failure of Leadership in a Flawed Political Culture

Then there was John McCain. Between his stance on the Iraq war and the immigration
defeat, you've got to wonder how he's going to pick his presidential campaign
up and go on. He's in real trouble.

So is the Republican Party. I give you the wingnuts, in their own words.

Hugh: I've sent Senator Lott an e-mail suggesting that he take the rest of the year off. His speech embodies all that I DETEST about Republicans in the Senate. I don't care what McConnell or Kyl say, they are just as culpable as Lott in the meltdown of the party. I am leaving the party, Hugh. I will follow the “blow-back” on your blog. Dave W.

Here's another comment.

Welcome to the club Dave! There's lots of traction among us conservative unaffiliated independents. It costs money to get us to vote and we aren't accused of violating Reagan's 11th commandment. We are probably the fastest growing “party”.

You can talk all day about what Republicans wanted to do with this bill, but
as I said on my radio show this week, it's self
interest all the way.

I also asked my source why he thought so many Republicans had been supporting such an incredibly unpopular bill. He gave three reasons: First off, there was what he referred to as the “Rovian School of thought,” which says that passing this bill would capture the Hispanic vote for the GOP for decades to come. Next up, there's the “Chamber of Commerce” vote. He says these Republicans were heavily influenced by business groups that want cheap labor no matter what the cost is for the rest of the country. Then there was the last group, the smallest group in his opinion, who were willing to sign onto a terrible bill just so they could say they were part of a big reform that had bipartisan support.

At least Kennedy wanted to do something for illegal immigrants and for this
country, really attempting to put something forward that would change what's
going on right now. Mind you, I hated what I could discern from the hundreds
of pages, because I continue to believe that the first things to do are much
simpler: 1) Hire a good number of border agents, arm them and give them powers
to enforce the border, while also putting every piece of technology in place
that will assist them without some ridiculous fence; 2) Fund the investigative units of ICE and other agencies,
which would hire more investigators to target employers who hire illegal immigrants, then fine those employers and publicly expose them on the web and beyond;
3) Something new I've added recently is the importance of beginning a dialogue with leaders of countries beyond our southern border, and start
talking about the high flight of their unemployed and what to do about it.

The Republican Party is an embarrassment, which their base has shown on the
immigration bill. All you had to do was listen to wingnut radio to get a clue.
It's truly amazing that Republican leaders were caught so off guard by the response
of their own base. It was yet another humiliation for Bush.

Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) does not like the immigration bill, either, but for entirely different reasons. Echoing the concerns of labor unions, he argues that the guest-worker program would depress wages and lead to foreigners taking good jobs that would otherwise go to U.S. citizens. Careful Strategy Is Used to Derail Immigration Bill 'Amnesty' Becomes Achilles' Heel