Thread: GOP's stance on immigration is out of touch

Guest Essay: GOP's stance on immigration is out of touch
BY JAMES B. TAYLOR
Chambersburg Public Opinion

It is not an insight to say that rank-and-file Republicans, even in Pennsylvania, are conservative, indeed Reaganite.
But apparently someone needs to tell this to the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee.

At its June convention in Hershey, delegates were treated to a solid array of Republican speakers whose views were anything but conservative. They also were treated to a program that skirted discussion of the most current and critical issue to Americans: immigration.

More than 80 percent of Republicans, surveys tell us, want illegal immigration stopped, a position with which the state leadership is completely at odds. And, based on the last election, most Pennsylvania Republicans also want new leadership that will enact conservative policies.

To me, a conservative and chairman of a county party, it seems as though the party is at war with its own base, a clear recipe for disaster in 2008. The speakers and program at the Hershey conference gave strong evidence of this.

The Friday night dinner speaker was Karl Rove, who has assisted President Bush in formulating his disastrous immigration policy and who has been the chief scold against immigration reformers such as Congressman Tom Tancredo.

When I was first becoming active in youth politics in the 1970s, you joined Young Americans for Freedom if you were conservative and steered clear of the moderate College Republicans who were then headed by Rove.

But the Big Kahuna at the banquet was another moderate, Sen. Arlen Specter. With his good friend Ted Kennedy, Specter was the author of the immigration reform bill that had just been defeated the day before by millions of phone calls from Americans who clearly saw the massive amnesty for illegals contained in the package.

Specter began life as a Democrat, but he turned Republican to run for office in Philadelphia when he couldn't gain admission to the city's Democratic machine. His voting record ever since reveals his political roots.

Perhaps the biggest shock of the weekend was when I mistakenly walked into a meeting of the State Republican Leadership Committee that was about to begin and saw big as life, Bob Jubelirer, the defeated and disgraced former president pro tempore of the state Senate. What was a man who engineered the scandalous pay raise and now a lobbyist going to advise this august group? How many electoral revolutions do we need before the state party gets the message from the voters?

At the Saturday morning breakfast, committee members were treated to a rally-the-troops speech by former governor and homeland security chief, Tom Ridge.

Part of a long line of moderate low-energy state leaders going back to the Hugh Scott of my youth, Ridge did his best to pepper his speech with applause lines. The group responded enthusiastically. But halfway through his talk Ridge addressed the just-defeated immigration legislation and was critical of its defeat and those who caused it. You could feel the audience turn. Ridge's immigration remarks were greeted with less than mild applause and he never regained his stride.

At the final meeting of the conference, a state leader took the microphone to try to salvage Ridge by intoning that he would make a great vice presidential candidate in 2008. The applause for this line also was embarrassing as the delegates no doubt were thinking, "Yeah! That'll liven up the ticket."

As a conservative, the final straw for me was when Erie Congressman Phil English took the podium.

The only Republican Congressman I've ever heard boast of being a moderate was there to trash the national Democrats. He did this by noting that the Dems had passed almost no legislation since taking over. All they passed, English said, was minimum wage, which they could have had last year when Republicans were in charge if the Democrats had cooperated. So the last Republican speaker of the program was telling a basically conservative audience that minimum wage was a good thing and that Republicans should be pleased that it passed.

At one point State Committee Chairman Rob Gleason noted the absence of fully 100 state committee members. Perhaps there was a reason for that. Many committee members see the senior party as out of touch with its rank and file and either unsympathetic or disconnected from their aspirations and principles.

But none of this could happen without the slavish cooperation of most delegates who attend these meetings and passively accept the lack of discussion on important issues and a leadership that refuses to reflect the base of the party.

The big question for the 2008 election: Will the National Republican Committee and the state party maintain their suicidal commitment to the immigration policies of Bush, Specter and Ted Kennedy or will they heed the overwhelming majority of Republicans and retrieve their loyalty and their votes?



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James B. Taylor is chairman of the Franklin County Republican Committee and a member of the Minutemen.

http://www.publicopiniononline.com/opinion/ci_6490728

Right now the way it stands is that the Senate voted no on proving citizenship to vote. With this being done it changes the dynamics of the 2008 race. Illegals will be voting. This is the reason we are seeing Obama and Hillary going after the Hispanic Vote.

Specter began life as a Democrat, but he turned Republican to run for office in Philadelphia when he couldn't gain admission to the city's Democratic machine.

You learn something every day. I didn't know Specter was a former Democrat. This clears up a lot of confusion for me in regards to Specter's position on many thing.

This is something I've feared for a while now. If the electoral process is corrupt there will be no way to change government to reflect the will of the people instead of the SIG's and corporations. 12 to 20 million (and I'm betting both of these figures are FAR too low) illegal aliens voting can definitely change the outcome of a presidential election.

Originally Posted by Paige

Right now the way it stands is that the Senate voted no on proving citizenship to vote. With this being done it changes the dynamics of the 2008 race. Illegals will be voting. This is the reason we are seeing Obama and Hillary going after the Hispanic Vote.