Saving November

When I wrote yesterday about the immigration situation and expressed my partial agreement with Sim, I had a specific commentary in mind for this post. That has changed, as today there were drastic improvements in the ongoing squabble in the Republican party vis-a-vis immigration reform.

After Monday night, it appeared that conversations that had started over the weekend (Gerahtyites vs. Tapscottians (with appropriate mention of Hugh for coining a fabulous phrase)) was blooming into a full-scale virtual rebellion designed to peel Conservatives away from the rest of the Republican party over this issue. From Tapscott:

But it is not President Bush, it is the congressional wing of the GOP - and by extension the national party apparatus that goes on regardless of who is in the White House - that is on the ballot and it is chiefly to them that I find myself no longer willing to extend the benefit of the doubt for two reasons:

First, I am no longer convinced that it makes a sufficiently critical difference in the day-to-day function of government that the Bill Frists, Trent Lotts, Jerry Lewises and Bill Youngs are in control of Congress instead of Harry Reid, Teddy Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi.

The GOP majority has hiked spending and expanded entitlements at a rate that would astound LBJ. Congressional oversight has become a mere memory under the GOP's control for the past dozen years. It was under a GOP majority in the House and with Bush in the White House that campaign finance reform was approved, thus setting in motion the most extensive undermining of the First Amendment and political speech since Lincoln threw opposition newspaper editors in jail during the Civil War.

I could go on because the list of essentially liberal programs and policies enacted and/or expanded under GOP control is lengthy. I didn't come to Washington 30 years ago to help Me, Too Republicans further the Liberal Democrats' Leviathan state; I came to help put it back in the cage that is the Constitution, traditionally understood.

If the GOP majority in Congress makes acceptable progress on these issues in coming months, conservatives will work, contribute and vote accordingly. If Congress doesn't act on these issues - or merely goes through the same old rhetorical motions - it will be clear beyond any further doubt that GOP majority really doesn't care about enacting conservative reforms and the GOP is useless as a tool for advancing political liberty.

Second, if the GOP majority fails to act or merely continues to talk about it, conservatives then have an obligation to find or create a new party.

Gerahty's reply, in a nutshell, emphasizes the practical consequences of a decision to pull back and sit out November:

Nice job, guys. Your effort to re-conservativize the Republican Party in Washington by staying home this year will have the effect of massacring the actual conservatives and empowering the moderates who you disdain. Perhaps we can call this counterproductive maneuver “RINO-plasty.”

With that I could only agree. As I wrote last night, you had conservative blogs being pulled apart and others proclaiming the possible end of the Republican party as they watched and listened to the President's earnest yet very much moderate immigration proposals. My reaction to that sequence of events was very simple and straight forward:

"Slow down people! Don't be hasty, don't be rash...there are bigger political issues at stake here.

"This is not 1992, history hasn't just ended. The political price of 'sending a message' has risen dramatically in the last several years and such a tactic that would put Democrats back into any positions of power jeopardizes efforts you yourself championed in the last 5-plus years in the judiciary and sets up a self-fulfilling Iraq-is-Vietnam pullout scenario that will damage the US for years to come in the war on terror.

"Simply put, we can't afford our righteous indignation; the political price of returning to Clintonesque Democrat policies of the 1990's is just too high. There's a war to win."

Well, somewhere between then and now, things turned:

That was the vote on the Sessions Amendment. [83-16]This is a reflection that the country believes in fencing, and lots of it. Passage of the Sessions Amendment and the Kyl/Cornyn Amendment earlier in the day makes it much more likely that the Senate will pass a decent bill, and that a conference bill will be possible.

Given that the House bill mandates 700 miles of fencing and the Senate bill 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers, the final bill that emerges from conference will mandate an enormous improvement in border security.

And once the fencing is proven effective --as it has been in San Diego and El Paso-- more fencing will follow where it is necessary, and the flow of illegal entrants into the country from across the southern border will diminsh quickly and significantly.

I have long been an advocate of the "fences and carrots" approach, and it looks like this is where the Senate bill is headed. This may yet turn out to be the rare bit of election year legislation that achieves a set of goals good not for one party or the other, but the country.

Conservatives have been cheering the House approach to the issue for some time, and it appears that Senate Republicans have awoken in the nick of time to the desires of their conservative and, ostensibly, non-conservative constituents. Their vote today signals an understanding--even if cynically based on political motivations--that the GOP wants a real answer to this problem and that at least a portion of them were willing to "go nuclear" on it.

The added bonus in today's vote is putting the Senate Democrats on record on the issue of fencing. All 16 votes were Democrats (And yes, Jeffords might as well make the 'I' into a 'D'):

The list of senators refusing to vote for this measure:
Akaka (D-HI)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Murray (D-WA)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Sarbanes (D-MD)

Some had the sense to read the tea leaves, and the Senate majority for the first time in some time got a big thing right. They may have just saved November in spite of themselves.