GOP Falling Apart?
Is the immigration debate tearing apart the Republican Party? It seems so:
The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors’ rebellion over President Bush’s immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.
Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee’s chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times…
There has been a sharp decline in contributions from RNC phone solicitations, another fired staffer said, reporting that many former donors flatly refuse to give more money to the national party if Mr. Bush and the Senate Republicans insist on supporting what these angry contributors call “amnesty” for illegal aliens.
More here:
At the center of the storm is GOP Chairman Randy Pullen — who edged out 38-year-old fundraising machine Lisa James by only four votes during that January election. He made national news this week for standing up for the party’s grassroots rather than the state’s two U.S. senators…
Pullen publicized the concerns about Kyl, in response, he said, to a flood of calls and letters from angry Republicans.
His critical remarks drew the attention of the national media, and by Wednesday he was playing hardball with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. On the Fox News Channel, anchor Brit Hume declared: “That battle in the Senate over immigration legislation seems mild compared to the fight in Arizona between state GOP conservatives and Arizona’s two Republican senators.”
Hot Air’s Bryan comments:
I’m not saying anything here that most of our readers don’t already know, but I do know that we have readers in the White House and in Congress. I hope they’re watching what’s happening to the AZ GOP, and realize that smearing the base while pushing legislation that the base despises could very well destroy the party as we know it. I wouldn’t be shocked at all to see the next opinion polls put the president’s approval rating at 20% or less, which would be yet another historic low.
What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker–”At this point the break became final.” That’s not what’s happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.
The White House doesn’t need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don’t even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.
This entire immigration debate will hurt Bush more than I initially anticipated. Bush seems to alienate the conservative base, the very ones who brought him into power. Now, Bush and McCain et al. are effectively labeling those who do not support the immigration bill racists. Continue reading this.
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Good riddance to the Republican coalition. Maybe this means that their dream of a fascist theocracy in America are over?
Peggy Noonan used to be a great supporter of President Bush. That’s putting it mildly. Right after the 2004, she wrote a column savoring his victory and, at the end, praising Hannity and Limbaugh.
In January 2005, she advised the Democrats to become more like Republicans if they wanted to win elections.
In March 2003, she wrote a lyrical column about how the American victory in Iraq would mean “a triumph of activism over fatalism”.
In September of 2005, she defended the President in the aftermath of Katrina: “Is the Bush Era over? No, no, no. It has three more years. That’s a long time. History turns on a dime. There is much ahead, and potential for progress.”
You can look at her archive If you’d like. She did seem to grow unhappy with the President as the 2006 election approached.
I guess it’s news that even Peggy Noonan think President Bush has squandered all his opportunities. But while he was doing the actual squandering, she was in support of him and what he was doing.
Sorry! Hope that closes the HTML tag!
Even if all the Republicans do split with Bush, no matter how far and fast they run, I do not think they will be able to hide from their connection and their support of his disastrous policies. The Republican presidential candidates for example, all they have to do is say something that is remotely similar to a position Bush took, and the Democrats will be able to effectively label them as a Bush Republican. Of course, they wouldn’t be far from the truth since most of the Republican candidates, even if they are trying to make themselves seem unconnected to the Bush debacle, they are trying to use his positions and tactics because they still think that is their golden ticket.
News flash! Nothing can hurt Bush anymore!
He’s not running, he doesn’t give a sh#t what his supporters or his opponents think and he never has.
He’s the decider dangit! Pretty scary stuff eh? Almost makes you wish Dick was still in charge.
Last night on Olbermann, it was reported that Chimpy was observed thumping his chest and claiming “I am the President” three times. And he’s fiddling while the divided America he has fostered burns.
Noonan is a little late in her column- all of those other issues which have been eating at her should have pushed her to write it as soon as it became apparent that the CIC was a power-hungry, divisive, incompetent.
kritter,
Was that some time in 1999?
Well , Chris, W did announce to a former biographer during the 2000 campaign(ditched because he didn’t make Bush look “presidential” enough,lol) that he was going to be a wartime president, because that would give him more political capital. (or so claimed by said biographer)
kritter,
Definitely frightening if true. I wonder how many Presidential candidates are thinking the same thing with their eyes on Iran.
“News flash! Nothing can hurt Bush anymore!
He’s not running, he doesn’t give a sh#t what his supporters or his opponents think and he never has.”
Exactly. Whatever happens Bush knows he’s still running the show since the Dems don’t have enough to overturn a veto. They send him proposals, he vetoes, then its back in their court. They have two options at that point:
a) Cave and pass something Bush approves of and look like pussies or
b) Don’t cave and face further vetoes. Then they look like obstructionist pussies.
This whole immigration thing must be a real rough thing for your average FOX news regular. On the one hand they have immigrants, the one minority group they are allowed to openly revile. On the other you have big business who is supposedly on your side yet seems to LOVE illegals for the tremendous cheap labor they bring to the table. Whats a black and white world conservative to do?
I think its a good time for the left to start getting support from these big companies using all this cheap labor since they seem to have some common ground for a change. It would leave sheer away a lot of big money from the ultra conservatives towards moderate politicians. Companies win, moderates and left win, immigrants win, immigrant haters lose. Sounds like a plan to me.
“I think its a good time for the left to start getting support from these big companies using all this cheap labor since they seem to have some common ground for a change.”
Gee, how quickly virtue is foresaked for political gain.
Easy there, Rove, oops, I mean, Sam, you don’t exactly have anything passed yet.
What are you talking about? I’m not morally opposed to lining up with big businesses like some Chomsky. Gov’t and business are supposed to work together for the general good, and this I think is a definite case of that. Immigrant labor has always been the backbone of this country and it deserves a fair shake despite what some more narrowminded, and generally 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants, think.
This is also about the disconnect between the big money folks that run the Republican party and the hordes of poor folks that vote republican despite the fact poor people tend to be generally screwed by the right. Its about time this got highlighted, too bad it has to be on immigration instead of something more like education cuts so the oil industry can get an $8 billion dollar tax break.