Is Rush Limbaugh right?

Could immigration really be the issue that finally cracks the Republican base? It's already making the party's '08 contenders act funny.

By Thomas F. Schaller


May 23, 2007 | On his radio talk show last Friday, dittohead in chief Rush Limbaugh was working himself into quite a lather. The subject? Immigration reform, specifically the controversial immigration bill now before the Senate -- or, as Limbaugh dubbed it, the Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act. Though Limbaugh pummeled his usual targets on the left, complaining that the current immigration reform proposal was yet another Ted Kennedy-led scheme to destroy America, Limbaugh was also unsparing toward national Republicans:

At the end of the day here, what we're talking about is the marginalization, if not the destruction, of the Republican Party. Look, it's time to be blunt here. I said I'm going to stop carrying the water last November, and I'm not carrying the water. The current crop of Republican leaders has not only lost the Congress, the current crop of Republican leaders is on the way to destroying the base by signing on to this kind of legislation.

This is not the first time I've heard this sentiment. Before the 2006 midterms, a leader of a prominent national conservative organization told me flatly that conservatives were willing to choke down their disgust with Bush till the votes were counted, but afterward, win or lose, they would be silent no more. Sure enough, post-election, Limbaugh and others gave vent to some of their more unkind feelings about the president and his party. And now, thanks to immigration reform, the volume of complaints has risen to a roar. As soon as the details of the painstakingly negotiated bipartisan proposal began to trickle out last week, talk radio and the right half of the blogosphere went ballistic, saying the bill meant de facto amnesty for illegal aliens. Furious members of the Republican rank and file began talking about last straws and using "impeachment" and "Bush" in the same sentence.

For the past three decades, Republicans have carefully sidestepped the kinds of issues that could divide a party's followers from its Beltway elites -- and expertly deployed the same wedge issues against the Democrats. Now the party's 2008 front-runners are in trouble, one of Karl Rove's long-term strategic goals is in doubt, and the foot soldiers are close to open revolt, all thanks to one uniquely radioactive wedge issue. Could Limbaugh's warning about a great unraveling be true?

"The Republican strategy on immigration has been one of the great failures of modern politics," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, which has organized a systematic outreach campaign to Hispanic voters. "What's going on in the Republican Party is a debate between the strategists who want to win and a part of their base that is extremely xenophobic."

Immigration is especially perilous for the GOP because it is what might be called a "double-edged" wedge issue. It not only pits the party's base against a large and quickly growing pool of potential new Republicans -- 41 million Hispanics -- but also pits two key parts of the existing base against each other. The Wall Street wing of the GOP, which finances the party, wants to keep open the spigot of pliant and cheap Spanish-speaking labor.
[And ya can't get more Repo than that - except, why stop at the little brown people?]
It finds itself opposed by much of the Main Street wing, which provides millions of crucial primary and general election votes and would like to build a fence along the Mexican border as high as Lou Dobbs' ratings or the pitch of Pat Buchanan's voice. And it's simply impossible for any political party to win if it has to choose between money and votes.

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