The GOP and Immigration, Part 3

Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker writes that if the GOP doesn't die a demographic death, it may just commit suicide by standing for its principles. Republicans, she writes, "seem to be adopting the self-immolation tactics of principled martyrs," and she continues, "Of course, principled or not, you're still dead in the end."

Maybe. But consider that the public has very little detailed information about the actual Senate bill and that when they learn that what they have been told or promised is not actually in it, their support drops. Or to quote a poll headline: "39 Percent Favor Reform Plan That Cuts Future Illegal Immigration by Just 50 Percent."

Parker writes that, "What Republicans are selling appeals to an ever-diminishing market that doesn't even include their erstwhile allies in business and industry. And their self-immolation may prove to have been nothing more than a bonfire of vanities."

Perhaps.

However, it also very possible that ordinary Americans may come to appreciate that a group of political leaders were willing to take on establishment members of their own party to keep them and the rest of the country from making an enormous policy mistake.

Sometimes real political leadership requires going against the grain and the conventional wisdom. Sometimes real political leadership entails seeing bad policy for what it is, rather than for what it might bring someday in the way of group votes.

And maybe many Americans will come to appreciate the principled integrity that led this group to stand firm and insist on immigration reform, whether piecemeal or comprehensive, that is really in the public interest and not just the accumulation of closed door, backroom deals in which the spoils are divided up and steamroller tactics employed.

For all the talk of the GOP's demographic demise or Parker's curious worry that demonstrating character by standing for principle while trying to reach agreement is a form of political suicide, the one danger to the GOP in the whole immigration debate that is rarely articulated, much less discussed, is this:

In not standing firm for its legitimate vision of what it sees as real immigration reform and by acceding to demographic hysteria, equivocal "friends", and Hispanic advocate demands, those who favor a different kind of reform stand in danger of loosing their policy and political integrity. They further risk damaging the trust of ordinary Americans who are skeptical and ambivalent about the Senate bill, and will become more so as they learn that much of what they were promised existed in the bill, like illegal immigrants having to pay back taxes, is not true and that other assurances come with numerous highly technical exceptions and qualifications that turn rhetorical promises into unlikely-to-be-realized hopes.

Trying to gain Hispanic votes for the Republican Party because the GOP-controlled House helps to pass the Senate's comprehensive bill is the fool's gold of immigration policy.

Obviously, the Republican Party has to reach out to every group that might be receptive to its core message of freedom, opportunity, and responsibility — Hispanics included. But trading away integrity for hoped-for votes is an invitation to well-deserved political oblivion — among advocates who will view the GOP's tawdry deal as simply haggling about the price, among those who have real reservations about the bill and would like these to be honestly addressed, and from among millions of ordinary American who have doubts about the process by which the Senate bill was enacted as well as its contents.

The immigration debate is a critical issue for the Republican Party, but it is not a life-or-death issue. What's more, there are many legislative responses that the GOP can make short of wholesale acceptance of the Senate bill that are responsible, legitimate, and may even be superior as a form of immigration policy.

Next: The GOP and Immigration: Death by Pandering