Thread: CPAC Immigration Hawks Turn up the Heat on Jeb and Rubio

by Ryan Lovelace February 28, 2015 5:51 PM

If they’re tempted to move toward the middle, the base may have other ideas.

Back in 2014, she helped take down former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Now, Laura Ingraham is hunting even bigger game in her quest to rid the Republican party of immigration moderates: She’s looking to knock Jeb Bush out of the 2016 presidential race.

Ingraham has hit Bush hard in the past. But speaking before a packed auditorium at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, Ingraham was especially biting.
“Why don’t we just call it quits and let Jeb Bush and Hillary [appear] on the same ticket?” Ingraham said. “I’m designing the bumper sticker: ‘Clush: What difference does it make?’”

As tea-party-aligned attendees plotted to walk out of Bush’s appearance at CPAC later in the day, Ingraham stood on stage to rally the troops. She took a jab at Bush’s wealth, made a sarcastic remark about his wife’s spending habits, and added that the elite “donor class” is hostile to conservatism.

Ingraham says her complaints about potential GOP presidential candidates who are weak on immigration aren’t personal — or confined to Jeb alone. “I like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, but this is about the country, defeating Hillary,” Ingraham says in an e-mail. “If we get this issue wrong, everything else we fought for as conservatives is jeopardized.”

Many conservatives agree. Soon after dozens of CPAC attendees marched out of Bush’s appearance led by a man carrying a Gadsden flag, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions held a private meeting with reporters and conservative activists. Echoing Ingraham’s remarks from earlier in the day, Sessions took aim at Bush and called on the GOP to put workers ahead of donors on the immigration issue or lose again in 2016. “I don’t know where he would be as the campaign goes along,” Sessions said. “I think his policy on immigration is in error, and I think it would deny him the opportunity to appeal to a lot of people.”

Jeb, as the presumptive front-runner for the 2016 Republican nomination, is taking most of the heat. But he’s not the only potential candidate who might be out of step with much of the Republican base on immigration. Florida senator Marco Rubio made a point of assuring conservative attendees at CPAC that he’d learned the error of his ways after his comprehensive immigration reform bill failed in 2013. And as NRO’s Andrew Johnson reported, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has walked back his former support for a form of amnesty for some illegal immigrants as he plans his own run in 2016.

Nearly every potential presidential candidate that took the stage at CPAC addressed immigration in some form. Former Texas governor Rick Perry argued that his state was capable of securing its border without the help of the federal government, while Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal focused his criticism on President Obama’s executive actions on immigration.​

Whatever stance candidates adopt on immigration in 2016, there will likely be some impulse to moderate their positions at some point in order to broaden their appeal beyond the activist base that predominates at CPAC. It won’t be an easy task: Immigration hawks like Ingraham seem content to give the potential candidates a fair hearing for now, but they have an itchy trigger-finger.

“CPAC is just the beginning of the conversation, but an important start,” Ingraham says. “Republicans slavishly follow the demands of the Chamber of Commerce and Silicon Valley tech barons; Democrats just want more voters, more union members. But today more people are onto this bipartisan shuffle. Either Republicans become more populist in their approach — improving the lives of middle class Americans and legal immigrants, not catering to the rich and big business — or they are poised to lose another presidential election.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...-ryan-lovelace

After our experience with an acting president and one with a Hispanic wife, we do not need more republican presidents. I was a tiny bit interested in Walker until Friday. But if he can compare American workers trying to protect their incomes to ISIS/ISIL terrorists, only heaven knows what he would call you and I? Geez, those workers had a right to protest, that is not a fair comparison at all. But you know that he intended to say it, a prepared speech provides opportunity for correction. Calling people trying to protect their income terroristic is absolutely un-, if not anti-American. We have one of those now, and the one before him was nearly alike in alien before Americans too!

Kevinssdad wrote:

After our experience with an acting president and one with a Hispanic wife, we do not need more republican presidents.

Basing your response on reality, what party do you think our next president should come from? Based on the way our system is right now, which will it be, a Democrat or Republican?

Originally Posted by MW

Kevinssdad wrote:



Basing your response on reality, what party do you think our next president should come from? Based on the way our system is right now, which will it be, a Democrat or Republican?

I would seriously prefer a candidate with no party affiliation. At this time I think the mood of Americans may just be such for that individual to get elected provided common sense and strength of character were largely displayed. It would necessitate Americans digging deep financially to support that candidate and spending week ends supporting such. If it cannot be done now, it will never be done in this century.

If it is just the choice of dem or repub it is too early for me to make a decent guess which party wins. I cannot support a repuub candidate if a party with a majority of both chambers of Congress cannot stop a tyrannical President of the other party. If they cannot I may vote dem myself, despising my action terribly.

Here is why if that is what occurs. Republican candidates are very apt to be pro immigrant, both legal and illegal. American labor is going to need some kind of support, and historically the GOP have never been so much labor friendly. At my age, I never know how many elections have I left, and I think I would owe Americans struggling for a living the best I could give them. If the republicans defund Obama's amnesties and began serious deportation, I would probably vote repub out of the same motivation. I will not support any pro illegal alien candidate, of any stripe. So, I am not afraid that my decision will be agonizing. If the repubs do not get this immigration right this Congress, the dems have NO worry about keeping the WH. That would even make Joe Biden and even bet for the democrats, republican voters are that angry, IMO. Rightfully so. Many of them will stay home, but so might many dems. Repubs have to get it right this year and come up with a proAmerica candidate for the oval office next year. Do they have one strong enough to withstand C of C and huge donor onslaughts. I do not believe that they do.

Sorry, MW, more info than you asked for. Subject to change that is my opinion on March 1, 2015. Political winds can easily mess my hair up. LOL

Originally Posted by kevinssdad

I would seriously prefer a candidate with no party affiliation. At this time I think the mood of Americans may just be such for that individual to get elected provided common sense and strength of character were largely displayed. It would necessitate Americans digging deep financially to support that candidate and spending week ends supporting such. If it cannot be done now, it will never be done in this century.

If it is just the choice of dem or repub it is too early for me to make a decent guess which party wins. I cannot support a repuub candidate if a party with a majority of both chambers of Congress cannot stop a tyrannical President of the other party. If they cannot I may vote dem myself, despising my action terribly.

Here is why if that is what occurs. Republican candidates are very apt to be pro immigrant, both legal and illegal. American labor is going to need some kind of support, and historically the GOP have never been so much labor friendly. At my age, I never know how many elections have I left, and I think I would owe Americans struggling for a living the best I could give them. If the republicans defund Obama's amnesties and began serious deportation, I would probably vote repub out of the same motivation. I will not support any pro illegal alien candidate, of any stripe. So, I am not afraid that my decision will be agonizing. If the repubs do not get this immigration right this Congress, the dems have NO worry about keeping the WH. That would even make Joe Biden and even bet for the democrats, republican voters are that angry, IMO. Rightfully so. Many of them will stay home, but so might many dems. Repubs have to get it right this year and come up with a proAmerica candidate for the oval office next year. Do they have one strong enough to withstand C of C and huge donor onslaughts. I do not believe that they do.

Sorry, MW, more info than you asked for. Subject to change that is my opinion on March 1, 2015. Political winds can easily mess my hair up. LOL

I understand whay you're saying. However, I think we may be headed in the right direction. I only say that because many of the newly elected folks, like Brat for example, are listening to their constituents and standing against amnesty. I'm hopeful this trend will continue and that many of the amnesty supporters will eventually be kicked to the curb. Will it happen fast enough, maybe not, but all we can do is keep fighting and placing people in the Congress that support the majority of voters on the immigration/border security issue. It's a tough fight because big money corporations and businesses are against us, but their financial support can be diluted with enough support from individual Americans. Being an Independent candidate does not guarantee the candidate will side with us. I believe the Independents in the Congress at this time all caucus with the Demcorats and do support amnesty. So, what's to say any elected in the future wouldn't do the same? IMO, this isn't really about party affiliation. Candidates that support our cause could theoratically come from anywhere, but it is a fact that most of those that stand with us on immigration are Republicans.

Recently I've heard the term "purist" used to describe what many are calling Tea Party Congress members. Up until this past election there were only 30 something such Republican members, now there are 52 (these are the folks that are adamantly against amnesty). Like I said, the trend is inching upward for getting the folks in we need. The biggest problem we have right now is that the Obama administration is absolutely blasting us with all barrels! He's seriously setting us back with his dedication to the special interest groups that want open border and amnesty.