Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) says that President Obama’s action on immigration is just like when FDR sent Japanese Americans to internment camps during WWII.
Now we know the theme song for Paul’s 2016 presidential campaign — “If I Only Had a Brain” from the Wizard of Oz.
“If we don’t pass immigration reform this year, we will not win the White House back in 2016, 2020, or 2024.”
John Feehery, who was chief of staff to GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert
They’re not passing immigration reform this year.
Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) says immigration reform won’t happen this year.
He says the GOP wants piecemeal reform, while the Dems want comprehensive reform, and there’s no way to resolve that.
Also, the Dems insist on a path to citizenship, while Republicans want legalization without that path. The GOP doesn’t want to create a whole lot of new Dem voters. And comprehensive immigration reform along the lines of the Senate-passed bill would infuriate their base, causing many of them to stay home in 2014.
As usual, the GOP is on the wrong side of history with no good options. Quel dommage.
OK, we’re now up to four responses to President Obama’s State of the Union address.
We have the official GOP response from Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the Tea Party response from Senator Mike Lee of Utah, the YouTube response from Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, and now the fourth — Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida will give the Latino response in Spanish.
Wait, aren’t these the people who want to make English the “official” language of the U. S. and freak out any time local/state/federal government makes any information available in both English and Spanish?
Why do we need four responses to a laundry list of what “ain’t gonna happen” in 2014? And what next, a response from Sarah Palin in “word salad”?
“While few explicitly talk about Obama in racial terms, the [Republican] base supporters are very conscious of being white in a country with growing minorities. The base thinks they are losing politically and losing control of the country.”
Dem pollster Stan Greenberg, quoted in the NYT
Former Massachusetts Senator Scott (“Empty Barn Jacket”) Brown is heading to Iowa to test the 2016 waters. Maybe he’s planning to argue that Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have falsely claimed to be Hispanic.
On “Face the Nation” today, Bob Schieffer repeatedly pressed John Boehner on whether or not he supports a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Boehner wouldn’t answer! Speaker of the House is supposed to be one of the most powerful positions in Washington, where you take a stance and work your will on your members.
His refusal to answer is a sad commentary both on Boehner personally and on the make-up of this particular House.
Boehner seems to be “leading from behind,” far, far behind. You can barely see him way off in the distance. Perhaps he’s searching for his testicles…
From Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo:
“Rubio’s vulnerability is so great in part because he staked so much on immigration reform as a way to loft himself to the top tier of 2016 GOP candidates. But the other part is because there was so little to the man in the first place absent his fortuitous would-be positioning as the young new Hispanic face of a Republican party reeling from a reputation for having little to no traction with America’s burgeoning non-white population.
“Remember, Rubio was basically an accidental Senator, swept up in the floodtide of the 2010 Tea Party mid-term, though it’s true that many careers start that way.
“Now that it’s clear that the base of the GOP – as expressed in the House GOP’s diehard desire to kill reform – is emphatically not on board with the Senate immigration bill to which he tied his fate, his whole plan for the 2016 run is basically in a shambles and his support among conservatives is falling rapidly.
“If you’ve watched over recent weeks, Rubio has been casting around for basically any right wing position to grab on to.
“So now Rubio seems trapped, on the wrong side of his party’s base on a key issue – and one that looks unlikely even to deliver legislation that might have bipartisanship traction with middle-ground voters. It’s one thing to say ‘I bucked my party to bring change the country needs’, another to say ‘I bucked my party on change my country needs but it actually didn’t pan out. Sorry.’ And now he’s forced to become some sort of hyperactive conservative wild man – what he wasn’t supposed to be – in order to recoup ground on the right that likely can’t be salvaged.”
Emphasis added.
“The very issue Rubio…thought would be a game-changing, legacy-builder looks like a big liability for the Florida senator, at least right now. In the process, the self-confident presidential hopeful suddenly looks wobbly, even a little weak, as he searches for what’s next.
“Rubio appears to have miscalculated how much Republican support he could win in the Senate – and how much conservative backlash he could avoid outside of it. And now he feels stuck. Conservative intellectual leaders – notably Rich Lowry of National Review… and Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard — are crusading against his bill, backed by the vast majority of conservatives in the House.”
From “Marco Rubio Stumbles,” Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, Politico
“[Marco] Rubio lost his own people and he doesn’t even realize it. He’s not going to make it past his primary as senator, let alone president. He’s in for a big surprise. … He might as well switch parties right now. He’s done.”
Juan Fiol, a Miami Republican who volunteered for Rubio in 2010, and now feels like a betrayed, silly “fiol.”
I think comprehensive immigration reform is dead, and Rubio’s 2016 chances might be as well. Of course, the man is a shameless, unprincipled flip-flopper, so we probably shouldn’t count him out. Who are we going to believe a couple of years from now, the Rubio who will deny he ever sponsored the Senate bill or our lying eyes watching video of his doing just that?
For more Tea Party grousing against Rubio, see “Marco Rubio Spurned by Original Tea Party Supporters Over Immigration,” Patricia Murphy, The Daily Beast.
Embattled Farmers 