THE RESURRECTION OF BUSH'S IMMIGRATION BILL-- WHO'S BEHIND IT? WHO'S AGAINST IT?

right-wing bloggers & the KKK see Tancredo one way, most Americans have a different image

The GOP's netroots is adamantly against it and the hard core xenophobic and racist Know Nothing wing on the party that controls the primary nomination process is adamantly against it. Bush doesn't care what these people think; he'll never run for anything against. He's pressuring Republicans in the Senate, who do have to run for office again-- many next year-- to pass the bill, despite the fact that it is wildly unpopular with GOP activists. Today's NY Times makes it clear, however, that there are important groups behind passage of the bill: "Within 24 hours, the Catholic Church and many business, labor and Hispanic groups were urging the Senate to resurrect it." Harry Reid was "inundated with telephone calls, letters, faxes and e-mail urging him to bring the bill back up. The pleas came from groups as diverse as the National Restaurant Association, the National Council of La Raza, the New England Apple Council and the business software company Oracle. Farmers and ranchers from coast to coast told the Senate to get the job done."

Business trade associations weighed in on Monday, four days after the bill appeared to have collapsed.

The United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Federation of Independent Business and the Business Roundtable told the Senate to go back to work.

Those are the Bush Family roots in the GOP-- and the power of those groups work on garden variety conservatives like Miss McConnell (R-KY) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ). But is it enough to pass the legislation?

Wingnut bloggers, who claim to speak for the extreme end of a party spinning out of control from power ceded to extremists, are up in arms. One lunatic on a keyboard, Ace of Spades, who usually spends his or her time attacking Democrats called Bush "incompetent and "embarrassingly dimwitted."

A straw poll of conservative bloggers conducted by the Web site Right Wing News showed that 96 percent of bloggers surveyed were "pleased that the Senate immigration bill did not pass."

Yet a poll published this week in the L.A. Times shows that not only do Americans overwhelmingly favor the bill, but that 65% of Republicans favor the bill.

Crazy bloggers, Lou Dobbs and the KKK against everyone else... sounds like no contest, right? Wrong. This is not your father's GOP. Yesterday, in Congress, one of the most extreme xenophobic legislators, Colorado's Tom Tancredo, who has threatened to campaign against any Republican voting for Bush's bill, scored a victory when 185 Republicans and 48 mostly reactionary Democrats-- the Heath Shulers, Tim Holdens, Mike McIntyres, Tim Mahoneys, Gene Taylors, Jim Marshalls, John Barrows, Mike Rosses... that whole crew-- managed to pass an amendment withholding federal emergency services funding from what they call "sanctuary cities" that protect illegal immigrants. Tancredo has been introducing this amendment for years and for years it has been defeated.

When I woke up this morning the first e-mail I saw was from my friend Michael who had sent me the story from today's L.A. Times talking about the impact of GOP xenophobia on new, particularly Latino, citizens. The xenophobes in the Republican blogosphere and on the extreme end of the party seem determined to make Republicans as non-competitive in heavily Hispanic swing states like Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and, most importantly, Florida, as they did a decade ago in California. Although new citizens from Spanish-speaking countries may not like Bush's handling of Iraq or other policies of his failed right-wing agenda, it is the Republican Party's hysterical stance on immigration that has turned the nation's fastest growing minority against them. Even Cubans, once the basis of the revitalized Florida GOP, are turning away from the Republicans in disgust.

Surveys show that among Latino voters-- a bloc Bush had hoped to woo into the Republican camp-- negative views about the party are growing amid a bitter debate over immigration policy.

Republicans in Congress have led the fight against a controversial Senate bill that would provide a pathway for millions of illegal immigrants to eventually become citizens. All but one of the GOP's leading White House hopefuls oppose the measure.

Many Latino leaders, including Republicans, have said the tone of some critics in attacking the bill has been culturally insensitive. They say that has alienated some Latinos from the GOP.

They know who Tancredo is and they know which party he's in and see him running for president and see almost all the other presidential hopefuls mimicking his anti-immigrant stance. They're talking it personally in ways that trump all other considerations.


UPDATE: ARNOLD HAS SOME ADVICE FOR LATINOS-- AND THEY HAVE SOME FOR HIM

California's racist Republican politicians have taken a battleground state and made it consistently blue-- at least in national elections. Schwarzenegger managed to piss off Hispanic leaders this week when he suggested that Latinos stop listening to Spanish-language television. Grandstanding as usual-- and ignorant as always-- Schwarzenegger neglected to mention that Hispanic immigrants learn English faster than the waves of immigrants who came here from Germany, Ireland and Italy.

Spanish-language media helps Hispanics stay connected to their cultural heritage and important public information, according to a spokesperson for Univision, a U.S.-based Spanish-language television network.

"Spanish-language media plays the essential roles of providing the Hispanic community with the news and information they need and care about, and keeping them connected to their cultural heritage," a said the Univision spokeswoman, who declined to provide her name.

"In addition to daily news from around the world, Spanish speakers rely on Spanish-language media for information in critical situations, such as severe weather alerts and health emergencies, and for other public services they may not be able to get anywhere else," the spokeswoman said.