In one of those somewhat silly and portentous “Behind the Curtain” reports Tuesday night, Politico hotshots Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen engaged in a high-profile piece of concern-trolling aimed at goading House Republicans into passing immigration reform. The dynamic left-wing duo said “immigration reform is headed for a slow death,” and then went on to point out why this foregone conclusion can only result in existential doom for the Republican party as a whole.
The article is a nifty, obvious, and well-constructed piece of passive-aggressive partisan psychology. But there are a number of crucial pieces of information “Behind the Curtain” leaves, well, behind the curtain.
Here are five things VandeHei and Allen chose not to disclose:
1. Politico Is Left-wing: Though they refuse to admit it, Politico is a left-wing publication with a left-wing agenda and a very cozy relationship with hard-left MSNBC. There is just no question that the idea of 11 million new Democrat voters makes Politico as giddy as it does any Democrat. Politico is desperate for immigration reform to pass.
2. Polls Prove a Huge Majority of Hispanics Agree with the GOP on Border Enforcement: A poll released Tuesday shows that a full 60% of registered Hispanic voters…
…support granting legal status to those already here only when the 90% goal is reached[.] … The ‘90% goal’ … is the target of ending 90 percent of current illegal immigration through border security and interior enforcement.
This poll is perfectly in line with an ABC News/Washington Post poll that Politico itself reported on back in April. In that poll a full 61% of Hispanics said they supported “securing the border.”
The GOP house can focus on border enforcement and make nearly two-thirds of Hispanics happy. That sounds like good politics to me. Moreover, Republicans can easily make the case to Hispanics that, as is, there will likely be no border enforcement.
One of the major sticking points with the Senate’s immigration reform bill is that, based on past history, no one honestly believes the border will be secured. Which brings me to number three…
3. For Partisan Purposes, Barack Obama Frequently Refuses to Enforce the Law: Whether it is the employer mandate in his own health care bill or — and this is important — certain immigration laws, this president frequently chooses to thumb his nose at legislation passed into law by refusing to enforce that legislation.
Because a porous border brings in new Democrats, Obama and the Democratic Party (and the media) are opposed to increasing border security. So what is to stop a president with this past history (and no fear of re-election) from refusing to enforce any new laws passed that increase border enforcement?
Nothing.
This means that there is no assurance that the will of over 90% of all Americans and 60% of Hispanics will be fulfilled.
4. 2012 Election Results Prove the Hispanic Vote Is Not the GOP’s Problem: A study of the 2012 election results shows that Mitt Romney’s biggest problem was not the Hispanic vote but his inability to excite his own base enough to turn out the white vote in the same way Obama was able to turn out the minority vote:
The most serious of those problems was that Romney was not able to connect with white voters who were so turned off by the campaign that they abandoned the GOP and in many cases stayed away from the polls altogether. Recent reports suggest as many as 5 million white voters simply stayed home on Election Day. If they had voted at the same rate they did in 2004, even with the demographic changes since then, Romney would have won.
Maybe if the GOP would nominate a true conservative who excites the base, we wouldn’t have to pander to the center — which turns off the base. Nominating the “most electable” moderates didn’t work in 2012 or 2008. Obama sure didn’t pander to the center in his two wins. He stayed true to his left-wing base and boosted turnout.
But as soon as the 2012 results were in, the media collectively jumped all over this false narrative about the GOP’s problem with Hispanics. Actual election results, though, appear to prove that this was nothing more than the media running a game on the GOP to create 11 million more Democrat voters through immigration reform.
If the GOP needs to pander to anyone, it is to the white voters in their own base, not a group that is highly unlikely to vote for them no matter how many gifts they dole out. Which brings me to number five…
5. Immigration Reform Has Done Nothing to Improve Rubio’s Standing with Hispanics: If Marco Rubio — who is Hispanic and the face of immigration reform — is still completely upside down with Hispanic voters, why would any sane person believe immigration reform would help any other Republican with Hispanics?
A poll taken just last week — after Rubio spent months taking Politico’s advice to very publicly push for immigration reform — shows that Rubio would win only 28% of the Hispanic vote in a presidential match up against either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden in 2016.
Romney won 27% of the Hispanic vote. So Rubio has increased his standing by 1%. Republicans who are not the face of immigration probably won’t do that well.
You also have to ask yourself what percentage of the GOP base Rubio will lose passing such an awful and unpopular bill. It seems fair to assume that immigration reform would cost Rubio more voters in the base than he would pick up among Hispanics.
Jeb Bush, another strong advocate for immigration reform, fares no better in that same poll.
BONUS 6. Passing Immigration Reform Could Hurt GOP Turnout: As I mentioned earlier, the GOP’s real problem is its inability to get its own base to turn out. That was why we lost in 2012. It had nothing to do with the Hispanic vote. Passing immigration reform is unlikely to help the GOP increase its share of the Hispanic vote but may very well dampen turnout among the GOP base even more.
That would truly be catastrophic.
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None of the facts listed above are unknown to our Behind the Curtain writers. These facts are merely inconvenient to Politico’s splashy, melodramatic psychological ploy to terrify the GOP into slitting its own throat.
Personally, and with a lot of caveats, I am in favor of a narrow path to citizenship, and I certainly want to see our mess of an immigration system repaired. But to say that I would like to see this reform passed responsibly through piece-meal legislation and am disgusted by the Rubio-Schumer ObamaCare approach, would be a gross understatement. I can’t even begin to express my personal disappointment with Rubio.
As soon as the Zimmerman trial is over, the media intend to put everything they have into convincing House Republicans to destroy themselves with immigration reform.
Republicans would be well served to avoid at all costs the echo-chamber Politico and its left-wing media ilk are currently warming up.
It is going to make the media’s left-wing push for gun control look like a practice session.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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