After two days of conversations in DC with leading conservatives and officials, it is clear to me that the GOP is the party of expertise and achievement abroad and innovation and new ideas at home, always the superior position in politics. The only serious danger to its leadership is a split over immigration –the sort of split that destroyed Peel’s Conservative Party over the Corn Laws and Gladstone’s Liberals over Home Rule for Ireland and Chamberlain’s theories of imperial preference. The president’s plan will stir a lot of passions, and would best be coupled with an extraordinary push for southern border security in the form of a border length fence and an easy to patrol highway along its length.
This is an issue that doesn’t get much coverage in Big Media, but if you listen to the second- and third-tier talk radio shows you’ll hear a lot of anger on the topic. I think that Hugh is probably right.