March 17, 2008
Maverick Blames GOP Losses on Pro-Enforcement Rhetoric
As if there was any question whether our great white-haired hope has his finger on the pulse of public opinion:
On NPR’s “Morning Edition” today, John McCain suggested that strong anti-immigrant rhetoric contributed to two recent, high-profile GOP Congressional losses – of former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who badly lost to Sen. Bob Casey in 2006, and Jim Oberweis, who lost the heavily Republican seat of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert this month in a special election.Let's set the record straight, here. As I set out before, the Republicans have been on track to lose Denny Hastert's seat since 2002. The loss in Illinois CD 14 was the culmination of year after year, election after election of erosion of the GOP support base in northern rural Illinois. Why the erosion of support? Because grassroots Republicans are tired of delivering the politicians one electoral victory after another, only to see the fruits of those efforts squandered."I know that there have been some races, like here in Pennsylvania, where Senator Santorum emphasized that issue [immigration] and lost by a large number,” McCain said on NPR.
“We just had a loss of Denny Hastert's seat out in Illinois. The Republican candidate out there, I am told, had very strong anti-immigrant rhetoric also, so I would hope that many of our Republican candidates would understand the political practicalities of this issue.”
No, pro-enforcement rhetoric will not, by itself, be enough to stem the tide. Did anyone ever think words alone would make everything fine? I suspect it'll take some serious pro-enforcement action before the prodigal voters are prepared to return to the GOP fold. The fact that Republican and conservative independent voters aren't ready to kiss and make up doesn't mean that open borders are the way to go. There's no wellspring of hispanic support out there just waiting to be snatched up by an open-borders Republican panderer. It simply doesn't exist. Even if it did, the GOP will never succeed in trying to "out-giveaway" the Democrats. Whatever goodies the Republicans are willing to give, the Democrats will always be willing to go one better. Some Republicans are smart enough to know not to play a losing game. Others, apparently, aren't.
