Herding RINO's

From The Washington Times:

Dissatisfaction with both Congress and President Bush is widespread and deep among conservatives, according to new polls that show Mr. Bush scoring startling low ratings on immigration in particular.

Thirteen percent of respondents in a new Zogby Interactive poll approved of Mr. Bush's handling of immigration, and 9 percent approved of his handling of border security. Among conservative and very conservative people, he was below 25 percent.

Meanwhile, a separate Associated Press-Ipsos Public Affairs poll released yesterday found 45 percent of self-identified conservatives disapprove of Mr. Bush's job as president, and 65 percent disapprove of the Republican-led Congress.

Numbers like this do not come about because conservative blogs write things critical of the President and/or Congress. They happen because the President and Congress have betrayed the conservatives who elected them.

Notice that the approval rating of Mr. Bush’s handling of immigration is in the single digits. Yet he continues to support an amnesty program (thinly disguised as a “guest worker" program) and he continues to oppose an effective barrier along the Mexico/US border.

Senate Republican are no better. They talk about how “mainstream” America rejects extreme positions like those held by J D Hayworth, Tom Tancredo and the Minutemen while polls consistently show that a large majority of Americans reject amnesty and support a border fence. It almost seems as though they were trying to create reality by shear force of denial.

The President’s behavior should not surprise anyone who paid attention to Mr. Bush as governor of Texas. He was very successful in gaining support among Hispanic voters there, gathering about one third of the Hispanic vote in his last statewide race.

What the President fails to realize is that Texas Democrats tend to have as much in common with mainstream Democrats in the rest of the country as Manhattan Republicans have with mainstream Republicans in the rest of the nation. That is very, very little.

Everything we have seen about President Bush since his election teaches us that he is a man who “knows what he knows” and knows it tenaciously. Even when obvious facts and evident reason argue strongly against what the President knows he continues to know it. His performance in the Harriet Meiers affair demonstrates that. However, it also demonstrates that he can change his actions, if not his thinking, when given enough incentive.

Senate Republicans are more difficult to read. What is making them hold so fiercely to a course of action which is virtually guaranteed to cost them their majority? I mean these men aren’t dumb. John McCain may be crazy as a shithouse rat and have an ego the size of Texas and an anger management problem the size of Alaska but he isn’t stupid. One possible explanation for the Senate Republicans actions is the belief that demographic trends make the future of America a Brown one. Projections which are based on continued massive illegal immigration and no attempt to rid ourselves of those illegals already here show America becoming majority Hispanic by 2050.

The urge to “get in on the ground floor” with a growing population which is religious and family oriented (and thus seemingly “conservative”) is great. However, as I’ve said before, the Democrats (the party of big-government redistributionist socialism) will be able to offer Hispanics far more for their allegiance than Republicans ever will. Unless, that is, the Republicans are willing to cease to be Republicans. There are indications that the Senate and the President are moving in that direction, unfortunately.

Another reason that elected Republicans are twisting themselves into pretzel shapes to accommodate the alien criminals and their supporters is that big business wants them here. Businesses that are labor intensive love illegals. They work cheap and demand no benefits. That the rest of society has to pick up the tab for their presence here concerns the businesses not one bit. After all it is just another form of corporate welfare and we all know eager most corporations are to suck on the government tit (can anybody say ADM?).

Of course businesses won’t like the results of amnesty any more than Republican politicians will. As I have noted before once the aliens become citizens the gravy train for business is over. They will be legally entitled to all the benefits that American workers get and there will be an army of activists to ensure that they get them.

But all of those dire consequences are yet future. The politicians clearly believe that if they can just throw some kind of bone to Red State America that the great American sheep herd will go back to munching grass and leave them alone. As Tony Snow, the new White House Press Secretary, said a few weeks ago on his radio show, “come this November the immigration issue will be the biggest nothing you can imagine”.

It is evident to realistic conservatives that something must be done to shock the inside-the-beltway crowd back to reality and it has to be done soon or the next Speaker of the House will be San Fran Nan, the next Supreme Court Justice will be Barry Lynn and the next Secretary of Defense will be Wesley Clarke.

So the question becomes, what do we do? In my view the only thing you can do when someone has his head buried in the sand is to grab him and pull as hard as you can. In the case of the President the Harriet Mires debacle tells us how to change his behavior, if not his thinking. Constant sustained pressure from his base, expressed at the highest possible volume will eventually bring about the desired result.

Remember what we heard from the Mires supporters during that unfortunate episode? How we were told that we HAD to support Mires because the President was just so stubborn and loyal to his friends that he would see the entire Republican Party go down in flames before he would change his mind? I found that kind of thinking very insulting to Mr. Bush. It was as though these people, who claimed to be the President’s supporters, thought him such a blockhead that he would be willing to commit political suicide in order to “stand by his guns”.

The President proved his “supporters” wrong then and I believe that he will now. I know that he genuinely likes Mexicans and believes that they are an asset to the United States. I know that he believes that once the threat of deportation is off of them that they will “settle down” and be productive citizens; that their naturally conservative tendencies will surface and they will become a solid Republican block that will guarantee GOP dominance well into the 22nd century.

Of course this is a pipe dream. Just look at what happened to the Blacks, another church oriented, family oriented, community oriented demographic group. After a couple of generations of welfare state handouts their churches are, for the most part, nothing more than political meeting halls where the only “gospel” preached is the mantra of victimization and hate. Their families are in tatters with well over half of Black Americans born in single parent families and their communities are dysfunctional war zones. This is what Mexicans are headed for when, not if but when, they fall to the siren song of the Left.

As for the Senate Republicans influencing them is not difficult. They are, for the most part, typical politicians. Meaning that they are craven cowards who walk around with their moistened finger stuck in the air trying to figure out which way the public has decided to head so that they can run out front and pretend to lead.

They, for the most part, have the same kind of contempt for the rubes back in flyover country as their cousins in the Jackass Party do. As long as they think that they can shine us on with hollow promises while still doing the bidding of their big corporate donors they will.

What will move them is refusing to take whatever bone they offer and slinking off in the corner to gnaw it. Keep up the pressure in every way possible until their fear of losing votes trumps their fear of losing donations and they will reluctantly, and resentfully, do the right thing.