Must Read: Immigration Politics Tears GOP Apart

After a critical vote yesterday on immigration reform in the Senate and looking toward another, the Wall Street Journal detailed how the issue is tearing the GOP apart in an editorial this morning. The editorial highlighted how the "continuing rancor among Republicans" is "the classic case in which pandering to the base will harm the GOP overall." The Journal also makes the point that the GOP is sending a message to the growing Latino population that they are not welcome in the Republican Party, and that message could have huge implications for 2008 and continue to hurt Republicans for "a generation or more." For the bill to make it through the Senate, President Bush has to reign in extremist members of his Party and convince opponents in the Republican Party to stop playing politics with this critical issue.

Immigration and the GOP
Editorial
Wall Street Journal

Below are excerpts of the Wall Street Journal editorial. To read the entire editorial, visit
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118290762780849450.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

"Immigration reform stayed alive in the Senate yesterday, albeit not without continuing rancor among Republicans...It's worth spending some time on the larger politics of the issue, especially for Republicans. They're caught between a passionate minority of their party -- who oppose any reform that allows illegals a path to citizenship -- and the larger electorate, which is more moderate and wants to solve the problem...

"If the issue remains central to the 2008 debate, it will divide the GOP and the media will play up the split. Given the passions that immigration evokes on the right in particular, the issue could easily drown out other domestic policy messages the candidates would prefer to run on. The longer term danger is that the GOP is sending a message to Latinos that it doesn’t want them in the party. And if that message sticks, Republicans could put themselves back in minority party status for a generation or more...

"But in the run-up to last year's midterm elections, Republicans chose to make immigration their lead issue. The GOP leadership in Congress encouraged talk radio and cable news shows to inflate the illegal alien problem, and Republican candidates took a hardline anti-immigration stance in hopes of turning out GOP voters. It didn't work…If GOP candidates can’t support Mr. Bush and Senator Jon Kyl on immigration, they should at least avoid the kind of demagoguery that will hurt their party for years to come."