The GOP's lose-lose immigration problem

One thing I keep forgetting to mention in my (admittedly sparse) posts about the immigration issue is a minor, but significant byproduct of the debate. But Salon has gone and written an entire article about it, so here goes:

The immigration issue is destroying the GOP's recent efforts at 'minority outreach.'

Republicans are pretty much at a stalemate on the issue, as last week's failed legislative attempt demonstrated. They're trapped between two groups who vote Republican: corporatists and nationalists (I'll use that term instead of racists). The former group wants the issue to disappear because illegal workers mean higher profit margins. The latter favors moronic "solutions" like a walled border and a mass-deportation program. Either way, a big chunk of the base gets riled up. And either way, Latinos get kicked in the pants by the GOP.

Members of the nation's fastest growing ethnic voting bloc had gathered to sing the praises of a political party that they had been deserting for a decade. In 2004, George W. Bush pulled off a little-noticed coup among Hispanics, by winning 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit polls, about twice as much as GOP nominee Bob Dole earned in 1996.

Ever since Bush's 2004 breakthrough, Democratic campaign consultants have been panicked over projections that show that the Hispanic vote will become increasingly decisive in swing states. If Republicans are able to increase their showing by 2 or 3 percentage points nationally, said Joe Garcia, a Democratic consultant at the Hispanic Strategy Center, "the Democrats will not take the White House again in my lifetime." But the coast-to-coast wave of massive street rallies in the last few days has been raising the hopes of the liberal-minded members of the political prognosticating class like Garcia. "This is just like Tammany Hall signing up the Irish as they got off the boat," he said. "The guy who sows this issue well is going to reap a good harvest."

The national protests represent a major setback for the Bush wing of the Republican Party, which has courted immigrant voters with a welcome message of economic opportunity in exchange for hard work. This carefully calibrated Republican appeal may now fall on deaf ears, especially among young voters whose political allegiance is still unformed. "There are voters-in-waiting who may be getting their political consciousness because of this," said Gabriel Escobar, the associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center.

Republican strategists like Karl Rove and party chairman Ken Mehlman have been fighting a losing battle within the Republican Party, hoping to isolate outspoken GOP opponents of Hispanic immigration, like Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, who talks about running for president in 2008 on a protest platform.