MICKEY KAUS: “Washingtonians always assume there’s some compromise deal that can be cut–the Bob Dole Fallacy. But sometimes there isn’t.”

UPDATE: Meanwhile, John Fund notes that Democrats are trying to outflank the GOP on immigration.

President Bush is vulnerable on immigration. Earlier this summer House Republicans bluntly told him that his proposal to admit guest workers would be dead on arrival unless accompanied by more border enforcement. “All my constituent town meetings want to talk about is immigration and why Washington is still spending so much money,” Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas told me. Indeed, 17 of the 37 GOP House and Senate members who responded to a National Journal survey last month identified immigration as the issue “most on the minds” of their constituents. One Republican identified immigration as the issue on which “the mismatch between the federal government’s inaction and the realities at home is the greatest.”

It’s a wedge issue, splitting the business-party from the rest of the GOP base.