Bush's immigration decision: legacy or his party's future?
On the issue of immigration, we all knew that President Bush was putting himself in a difficult strategic position. On one hand, by agreeing with the conservative House position, he would be alienating Hispanic voters, therefore electorally damaging his Republican Party in the long-term. Or, Bush could continue to adopt the stance he has stuck with until this point: agreeing with the Senate position and refusing to negotiate with the House, which would hurt his party's chances in this November. So it comes down to a question of whether Bush wants to think long-term or short-term?
Until now, President Bush was more likely to follow the Karl Rove route of not allowing the House to get their way. Why? Rove is expected to stay in politics even after Bush leaves office in a few years. What Bush leaves for Rove will be what Rove has to clean up and fix. With that said, the senior White House strategist has every intention of keeping President Bush from choosing a position on immigration that would reverse the strong support that Republicans received from Hispanic voters in 2004.
But things have changed. President Bush is worried about the Democrats taking back the House. If they do, then expect two years of the House Democratic majority using their subpoena power to get to the bottom of all the lies and deceit dating back to the decision to invade Iraq. Bush cannot have that because those investigations would likely expose more wrongdoing on the part of the White House, hurting his legacy as a result. With that said, President Bush has every incentive to abandon his party's long-term electoral strategy and do everything he can to hold the House -- and that means negotiating with the House to get an immigration deal done.
Wednesday's New York Times is reporting that :
..President Bush is signaling a new willingness to negotiate with HouseRepublicans in an effort to revise the stalled legislation beforeElection Day.
Republicans both inside and outside the White House say Mr. Bush, who has longinsisted on comprehensive reform, is now open to a so-calledenforcement-first approach that would put new border security programsin place before creating a guest worker program or path to citizenshipfor people living in the United States illegally.
"He thinks thatthis notion that you can have triggers is something we should take aclose look at, and we are," said Candi Wolff, the White House directorof legislative affairs, referring to the idea that guest worker andcitizenship programs would be triggered when specific border securitygoals had been met, a process that could take two years.
Theshift is significant because Mr. Bush has repeatedly said he favorslegislation like the Senate's immigration bill, which establishesborder security, guest worker and citizenship programs all at once. Theenforcement-first approach puts Mr. Bush one step closer to the House,where Republicans are demanding an enforcement-only measure.
"Thewillingness to consider a phased-in situation, that's a pretty bigconcession from where they were at," said Representative Tom Cole,Republican of Oklahoma, whose closeness to Mr. Bush dates to his daysas a top Republican National Committee official. "It's a suggestion they are willing to negotiate."
Ina sign of that willingness, the White House last week invited a leadingconservative proponent of an enforcement-first bill, RepresentativeMike Pence, Republican of Indiana, to present his ideas to Mr. Bush andVice President Dick Cheney in the Oval Office.
Ms. Wolff said the president found the Pence plan "pretty intriguing."
Inan interview Tuesday, Mr. Pence said the president used precisely thosewords in their talk. Mr. Pence said that the meeting was scheduled tolast 10 or 20 minutes but went on for 40, and that the president "wasquite adamant throughout the meeting to make the point that he hoped Iwould be encouraged."
The White House is realizing that striking a deal with the House of Representatives on immigration is the only shot they have left of saving the President from two years of subpoenas and investigations from the House Democratic majority.
After following the negotiations over the last several months, I can say that a deal between the White House and the GOP-controlled House of Representatives looks a lot more likely than it did in May when negotiations took a turn for the worst. With that said, the Democrats need to be prepared to take a strong stance of their own on this issue. Starting yesterday, Hispanic activist groups began their nationwide get out the vote effort, before the election. This is a demographic that will show up at the polls in November. If the House of Representatives and President Bush strike a deal that does not include a guest worker program, then the Senate Democrats would do themselves a huge favor by filibustering the bill once it reaches the Senate floor. Hispanic voters need to know that Democrats are the only party that will be by their side in this civil rights fight.
Democrats also need to point out the fact that if Bush does agree with the House, he will be engaging in one of the biggest flip-flops in history.
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