Republican Backstabbing And Political Suicide

by Troy Stouffer

I am an opinionated conservative. Because I have strong opinions and I am not afraid to voice my opinion, I have developed a thick skin for name calling and personal attacks. I am not unique in that respect. Many of my friends on the opposite end of the political spectrum have become accustomed to the vitriolic attacks on their beliefs. Most of us that enjoy the political process realize that this is all part of the game, but normally the attacks come from the other party.

This latest feeble attempt at immigration reform has brought out some of the worst attacks from the leaders of the Republican party. In the past couple of weeks, anyone who is opposed to the bill has been called xenophobic, bigoted, racist, unpatriotic, and had our intelligence questioned. Linda Chavez wrote an article recently where she equated the opposition to the bill to racism and hatred for anyone from “south of the border”. When pressed on the issue, Chavez admitted that a minority of the opposition, roughly 10%, is made up of the xenophobes.

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal recently released some audio of one of their editorial meetings. Their condescension for the conservatives that were opposed to the bill was loud and obnoxious. I am the first to admit that I am not a scholar or an intellectual. I do not have a Master’s degree or even a Bachelor’s degree. I think the only time I am the smartest person in the room, is when I am alone. Even though I am intellectually challenged, I can see that this is bad legislation. One aspect stands out though, the “Intellectuals” have been working on reforming immigration for over 40 years and not resolved the problem. Maybe it is time we listen to those of us who are the uninformed and less intelligent than the political elite.

Not all of the politicians in Washington D.C. have succumbed to the political pressure from their parties to back this bill. From the start of this debate over 2 weeks ago, the supporters of the bill warned that any changes to the bill would cause the legislation to be ineffective. Many proposals have been blocked by the once staunch supporters of the reform. One amendment that was defeated was to block the legal status of those illegal immigrants who have been ordered to be deported by a judge, but then failed to appear in court.

The Democrats are not without blame on this reform bill. Senator Edward Kennedy was a driving force in the writing of this bill. Kennedy has been a key player on every major immigration reform package since his political career began over 40 years ago. I have to ask the question, if Teddy has not been able to fix this problem in 40 years of trying the same tactics, why does he believe this will be any different? Can anyone tell me a simple definition of insanity? For my “intellectual” readers, doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said that if this bill fails it will be seen as a failure for President Bush. I agree that it will be seen as a failure for Bush, but it should also be seen as a failure for Reid, McCain, Kennedy, and any other politician that backed this bill. They should also be held accountable if the bill passes as it is written now. Reid and the Democrats could not even muster the necessary 60 votes to end debate on Thursday and bring the measure to a full vote. They only managed to get 33 votes to end the debate. Hardly close to the slim majority that the Democrats hold in the Senate.

I am usually not prone to political predictions, but in this case I will go out on a limb and make a few predictions. If this bill passes as it is written now, the Republicans will lose more seats in both houses of Congress and have zero chance of a Republican candidate winning the White House in 2008. The conservatives will not suddenly vote for the Democrats. They will back challengers to the incumbents in the primaries and will stay home on election day rather than vote for any candidate that had a hand in passing this legislation into law. One other point that has conservatives up in arms is the wall to wall assault by the administration in support of this bill. Where has this energy been on other issues for which the conservative base was screaming?