The (Raleigh) News & Observer’s Rob Christensen has a column out on Republicans and immigration reform. In the last three sentences, he offers up what he sees is the political calculus of the issue:
But the issue is a difficult one for Republican House members. While GOP lawmakers understand both the practical issues (businesses’ need for workers) and the politics (the need for Republicans to reach out to the nation’s largest minority), it doesn’t look that way in their own districts.
Because of redistricting, most Republican House members represent districts that have few Hispanic voters. But they do have to worry about their right flank in GOP primaries.
That’s why if there is any movement on the immigration issue in the House, it is likely to come after next spring’s primaries. And it is more likely to come in piecemeal changes in the law, rather than in any overall comprehensive reform legislation.
That’s an accurate description of the political thinking as of a year or six months ago. Recently though, there’s been considerable push back on the Right against the idea of reaching out to Hispanics (or blacks, or younger voters). The argument being advanced by Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, and William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard (among many others) is that immigration reform is ultimately irrelevant to the Republican’s chances. Why? Because it’s argued implicitly or explicitly that Republicans can win the White House in the future simply by getting enough white votes.
Yup. You read that right. The fact that American is becoming less white doesn’t matter because the GOP can win without getting many minority votes. To do so requires the GOP regularly win as large a percentage of the white vote as it did during the 1984 Reagan 49-state landslide. Not a problem.
Except that it is a problem. The National Journal offers up a very nice 5,000 word (!) analysis explaining exactly why the Republicans’ Great White Hope won’t work. The short version: Minorities will continue to vote at high rates, the GOP can’t consistently get white votes at the rates they need, and younger voters won’t automatically start voting Republican as they get older.
Change is difficult. There are many on the Right who’d like to believe that the political strategies and policy positions that they’ve helped craft in the past remain correct. Immigration reform is unlikely until many on the Right get over their denial of reality and accept the world as it is and not as they’d like it to be.
Bonus thought: Have I mentioned that you really should read that National Journal article?
