reality-based educator

From the Washington Post:

With the Senate marching toward completion of an immigration bill that is more generous to illegal immigrants than the House-passed version, House leaders said yesterday that it will be difficult to reach a compromise and enact a measure.

Several House Republicans said an accord is possible only if President Bush pours his full energy into the effort, which they say is an uncertain prospect given his preoccupation with Iraq, his low poll numbers and GOP skittishness about November's elections.

CNN's American Morning just reported that the immigration bill is that much closer to passage when the Senate votes on new provisions today.

But I think the Post report is closer to reality here. I can't see the House and Senate hashing out a bill in committee. The GOP is simply too divided on the issue.

Ironically, Karl Rove brought up the immigration issue originally because he thought he could use it as a wedge issue agianst Democrats. But instead the immigration issue has become a wedge issue against Republicans. Note this article from Sunday's Washington Post:

Hispanic voters, many of whom responded favorably to President Bush's campaign appeals emphasizing patriotism, family and religious values in Spanish-language media in 2004, are turning away from the administration on immigration and a host of other issues, according to a new survey.

At the same time, separate polls show that conservative white Republicans are the voting group most hostile to the administration's support for policies that would move toward the legalization of many undocumented immigrants.

Cumulatively, the data underscore the perils for Bush and his party in the immigration debate churning on Capitol Hill, one that threatens to bleed away support simultaneously from the Republican base and from Hispanic swing voters, whom Bush strategists had hoped to make an important new part of the GOP coalition.

The GOP is caught between a self-created rock and a hard place on the immigration issue.

And losing both Hispanic support and pissing white conservative nativists off doesn't seem like a winning electoral strategy come November to me.

Maybe the best thing that could happen for the GOP is to have this immigration bill die in committee.