Immigration Issue May Doom Republicans

This post originally appeared on Down With Tyranny!

My meeting started today at 8:30am and ended around 6pm. There were no windows and the recirculated air was dry, ultra-cold and unhealthy. And it was a very tough, contentious meeting. I got back to my hotel and switched on the tube to see if Congress had voted to give Bush a blank check yet. While I was waiting for the shameful vote, Lou Dobbs was on CNN bashing everyone who supports Bush's immigration "Grand Compromise." My favorite part was about how redneck Arizona Republicans are so furious at their two wingnut senators, Jon Kyl and old man McCain, that they're leaving the GOP in droves.

Robert Novak, like me, thinks that Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Saxby Chamberpot (R-GA) being boo-ed at their reactionary, racist, xenophobic party's state conventions, portends ill for Republicans. Both corporatist whores are trying to deliver cheap labor to their Big Business financiers and "behind the catcalls was GOP rage over undocumented foreigners, a sentiment GOP lawmakers must appease or risk dire consequences."

Graham has called his rightist antagonists ignorant Know Nothings-- which they mostly are-- but that has made him even more of a target for their rage and feelings of betrayal. When Novak asked the closeted Republican why his constituents are so angry with him, Graham "quoted from a federal government report on the new arrivals to this country, 'largely unskilled laborers' and heavily illiterate: 'The new immigration has provoked a widespread feeling of apprehension as to its effect on the economic and social welfare of the country.' The report, by the U.S. Immigration Commission, was dated 1911."

Graham and Chambliss, both up for re-election next year, were unprepared for the hostility they encountered at their state party conventions. At Columbia, S.C., delegates erupted in boos when Graham mentioned Kennedy's name. Chambliss' apparent proximity to Kennedy in a photograph evoked booing at Duluth, Ga. Unaccustomed to such treatment, Chambliss expressed his resentment to Senate colleagues back in Washington. Graham was not happy with his junior South Carolina colleague, Sen. Jim DeMint, for playing to the convention crowd with anti-immigration oratory.