February 7, 2014

Boehner admits to pulling a boner on immigration

From the NYT:
The yearlong effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, which had the support of President Obama, Republican leaders and much of American business and labor, was seriously imperiled on Thursday when Speaker John A. Boehner conceded that it was unlikely he could pass a bill. 
His pronouncement, amid mounting resistance from conservatives, significantly narrowed the window for success this year and left it to Mr. Obama to win the trust of balking Republicans. 
Mr. Boehner’s remarks came a week after he and other House Republican leaders offered a statement of principles intended to win support for the measure. But, he said, House Republicans are not prepared to move forward in partnership with a Democratic administration that they believe will not fairly and impartially carry out the laws they pass.

Also from the NYT:
Democrats Aim for a 2014 More Like 2012 and 2008
The Democrats’ plan to hold on to their narrow Senate majority goes by the name “Bannock Street project.” It runs through 10 states, includes a $60 million investment and requires more than 4,000 paid staff members. And the effort will need all of that — and perhaps more — to achieve its goal, which is nothing short of changing the character of the electorate in a midterm cycle. 
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is preparing its largest and most data-driven ground game yet, relying on an aggressive combination of voter registration, get-out-the-vote and persuasion efforts. 
They hope to make the 2014 midterm election more closely resemble a presidential election year, when more traditional Democratic constituencies — single women, minorities and young voters — turn out to vote in higher numbers, said Guy Cecil, the committee’s executive director. 
... Even with new funding and tactical tools, the Democratic Senate campaigns face considerable challenges. The voting rates of core Democratic constituencies — blacks, Hispanics, unmarried women, younger voters — historically drop off considerably in midterm elections. According to data from the Voter Participation Center — a nonpartisan organization dedicated to increasing the share of historically underrepresented voting groups — the drop-off among these groups between 2008 and 2010 was nearly 21 million, going from roughly 61 million to 40 million. 
... “The question is whether the party’s Obama-era volunteer base will replicate itself for a Mark Pryor or a Mary Landrieu or a Kay Hagan,” said Sasha Issenberg, author of “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns,” referring to three vulnerable incumbent Democratic senators. ... 
In many ways, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s efforts are simply reflective of a broader shift in electoral politics toward a more data-reliant and empirical approach: The effectiveness of television ads — which experts agree reach a point of oversaturation near the end of campaigns — is difficult to measure, while improved data-modeling and analytic techniques allow campaigns to more closely target their ideal voters.

You know, maybe the Republicans should try being smarter for a change instead of ignorantly wasting time and momentum on obviously bad ideas like these "immigration principles." Maybe the Stupid Party should try to get over being stupid?
   

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

The yearlong effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, which had the support of President Obama, Republican leaders and much of American business and labor...

And some people think it's the Russians that have been breeding with Yeti.

Anonymous said...

The effectiveness of television ads — which experts agree reach a point of oversaturation near the end of campaigns — is difficult to measure, while improved data-modeling and analytic techniques allow campaigns to more closely target their ideal voters.

Whatever happened to coming up with policies to address common issues, articulating those policies, then counting the votes?

chercez les blogger dorks said...

Funny, he's normally the first (on his own blog, that is) to call out the latest media-beloved Beltway consultant creep touting decades of expertise in School Reform or Harnessing Globalization or Ending Corruption, yet falls for the same Big Data spiel if spouted by a "geeky" "technocrat" liberal wunderkind who's also expertly modeled NASCAR driver performance, or some similar garbage. "Yessir, sign me up for 10 copies of that newsletter--ah, such numeracy!" If the Democrats retake the House it won't be from hiring as many cocky young neo-Sailers as the Washington. real estate market can support. A preponderance of Democrat beneficiaries has an odd way of steering the entire country left, even if the Republicans began contracting every market research firms in the world to run a tab till 99% turnout is effected.

Frank George said...

He pulled a boner alright, probably trying to one-up Chris Matthew's tingle up the leg over Obama getting elected a second term.

Problem is, he put it in the can of the US citizenry.

Ex Machin said...

They're salesmen of the Powers That Be's agenda, nothing more. The notion that they'd actually try to represent their constituents is, you know, laughable.

DCThrowback said...

Scamming the people by hiring the smartest (white) people to get to 50.01 is the new normal, Anon @3:36pm. If getting 30-something childless white women in NoVa all riled up that Ken Cuccinelli might take away their birth control, that's what we'll do.

We learned it by watching you (in OH '04), Turd Blossom. We learned it by watching you.

Anonymous said...

Whenever any GOP politician says anything on immigration, anything at all, the party fractures into two factions, dissolves into name calling and voters flee in droves.

They should just shut up.

Anonymous said...

Do the republicans have any plan at all, electorally? Let alone a $60 million, 4,000 paid employee, fancy-named plan? It's chess and checkers. And the GOP isn't even seriously playing checkers, they're really just trying to steal the checker pieces and sell them off.

This is a good opportunity for me to repeat a comment I made on another thread:

Virginia is never going to go Republican for the presidency ever again. GOP will be lucky to win one senate seat ever again. The new governor is a longtime national democratic party money man and "fixer". He has one job to do and he knows it, to turn the state reliably, permanently, deep blue. Ideally using the VA taxpayers' own money to do so. The GOP has no plan to stop him. They probably aren't even aware that that is his plan.

Anonymous said...

The late Lawrence Auster on the 'stupid party' and its support for amnesty:

"So the death of the GOP as a national party is assured—at the hands of the very ethnic group whom in their fantastical mindless delusion they are now embracing, thinking it will mean their salvation.

And I think the GOP has now also assured its death from another quarter—from white conservatives who will now finally realize that the Republicans do not stand for America but for its undoing. How could any conservative now support the GOP? It deserves to be destroyed. I, for one, wish it to be destroyed, and to be replaced by genuine conservative party."

Anonymous said...

B b but w/o all the future African physicists and surgeons the US economy will collapse. Do these conservatives not listen to the MSM.

Anonymous said...

Though immigration may be the only issue where the GOP is on the same side as American citizens instead of the international plutocracy, they can't even manage to on the same side for a good reason. As far as I can tell, the Ds want to open the borders immediately because Emma Lazarus's poem is more important than the law or good policy. The Rs want to open the borders as soon as they're in charge again to ensure a large enough reserve labor force of non-voting foreign peasants to permanently destroy the American working class.

Divided government might be the only thing we have going for us.

Anonymous said...

"Bannock" now there's a name to conjure with. No doubt related to "Bannockburn" and the famous battle thereof in which Robert the Bruce's small Scottish force routed Edward III much bigger English force by using cunning, feints and pitfall traps with some rather nasty spiky iron contrivances attached.
Surely there's a moral there somewhere.

Average Joe said...

Sheldon Adelson pays them very handsomely to be stupid which is why the GOP will probably continue to act stupidly.

peterike said...

Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Oompa-Loompa!

countenance said...

And I'm not buying for one moment that Boner is truly dropping amnesty.

Bert said...

"Do the republicans have any plan at all, electorally?"

Their plan, originally, was to turn all those Mexicans into homeowners who would support the GOP out of gratitude. That idea went up in smoke after the debacle of Bush's second term. Since then they really don't have any ideas. They've been throwing things against the wall over and over, trying to see what will stick. Hence why they think yelling "Obamacare!" will save them just like they though yelling "Benghazi!" would save Mitt Romney.

Bert said...

"Whenever any GOP politician says anything on immigration, anything at all, the party fractures into two factions, dissolves into name calling and voters flee in droves.

They should just shut up."

That's exactly how I feel about the GOP's foreign policy platform.

Anonymous said...

I dislike what the politicians of both parties accomplish when in office but I dislike what the Republican politicians accomplish even more.

In the opposition they serve a purpose and occassionaly demonstrate some lotyalty to their constituents, in office they act traitoriously.

Why you appear to care to heklp Republican polliticians win elections is a mystery to me. Let them lose.

They are a greater danger in power than democrats are.

Moshe

Anonymous said...

Republican politicians don't shake enough hands with the white working class values/interests voters who actually provide them with at least 3/4 of their votes. Ideological purity to completely open markets is not a luxury they can electorally afford. The hard left would gladly tax the top 10% at 1970's levels again as soon as they have the electoral/demographic ability to do so. One has to wonder how many (really) maids and construction workers Boehner has actually spoken with. They'd be all for much of the Democratic agenda, including a higher minimum wage.

Hunsdon said...

Anonydroid at 6:43 AM quoted Larry Auster: "So the death of the GOP as a national party is assured—at the hands of the very ethnic group whom in their fantastical mindless delusion they are now embracing, thinking it will mean their salvation.

And I think the GOP has now also assured its death from another quarter—from white conservatives who will now finally realize that the Republicans do not stand for America but for its undoing. How could any conservative now support the GOP? It deserves to be destroyed. I, for one, wish it to be destroyed, and to be replaced by genuine conservative party."

Hunsdon said: You know, at first I didn't think he was talking about Hispanics.

Anonymous said...

Hunsdon said: You know, at first I didn't think he was talking about Hispanics.

Hunsdon FTW.

Svigor said...

Wait...did Boehner just take a dive?

Svigor said...

Backlash against immigration plan floods Boehner’s website

When House Speaker John A. Boehner posted online the GOP’s new immigration principles, including legalizing most illegal immigrants, he allowed comments. And they are brutal.

The standards were posted on Monday and by Friday at 11 a.m. there were nearly 4,500 comments, and they were overwhelmingly opposed to what Mr. Boehner was proposing.


Did...did Boehner take a dive?

Svigor said...

LOL, the last paragraph is just too precious:

The online comments forum on the immigration principles ran from well-thought out policy positions to repugnant attacks: “Please tell the jews that we don’t want their One World Order. If they like immigrants send them to israel[sic.],” wrote user “Barbara Cornett.”

Heh - grab a quote you like, publish it, call it repugnant to CYA. I approve.

Harry Baldwin said...

Hence why they think yelling "Obamacare!" will save them just like they though yelling "Benghazi!" would save Mitt Romney.

Well, "Obamacare!" and "Keystone Pipeline!" And if Obama okays the pipeline right before November 2014 the Republican pols will be left standing there with that Dan Quayle look on their faces.

Anonymous said...

"As far as I can tell, the Ds want to open the borders immediately because Emma Lazarus's poem is more important than the law or good policy. The Rs want to open the borders as soon as they're in charge again to ensure a large enough reserve labor force of non-voting foreign peasants to permanently destroy the American working class."

Both parties are full of what Samuel P. Huntington labelled "Davos Man" types - elites who "have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite's global operations."

Anonymous said...

"Maybe the Stupid Party should try to get over being stupid?"

Peter Brimelow:

"In America, we have a two-party system," a Republican congressional staffer is supposed to have told a visiting group of Russian legislators some years ago.

"There is the stupid party. And there is the evil party. I am proud to be a member of the stupid party."

He added: "Periodically, the two parties get together and do something that is both stupid and evil. This is called—bipartisanship."

Our current mass immigration policy is a classic example of this fatal Washington bipartisanship. It is a stupid policy because there is absolutely no reason for it—in particular, Americans as a whole are no better off economically because of mass immigration.

It is an evil policy because it second-guesses the American people, who have shown through smaller families that they want to stabilize population size.

Unfortunately, our current immigration policy is consuming the environment with urban sprawl, hurting the poor with intensified wage competition, and ultimately threatening the American nation itself—what Abraham Lincoln called "the last, best hope of earth"—with cultural and linguistic fragmentation.

And, of course, the current mass immigration policy is bipartisan.


Immigration policy stupid, evil and hurting Americans

Harry Baldwin said...


I was watching the All-Star panel on Fox's nightly news on Friday. The topic turned to immigration reform and the question was raised as to whether immigration helps or hurts America's high unemployment (WTF?). Defending the former proposition, the Washington Post's Charles Lane mentioned that he had just seen an ad on Fox News from a conservative group supporting immigration reform as being helpful to the employment situation. The "conservative group" he was referring to was of course Mark Zuckerberg's false flag operation. Isn't that fact generally known? Is Lane really that stupid or just uninterested? No one else on the panel mentioned anything, but then again, Zuckerberg is pumping ad dollars into Fox News after all. Pays to keep mum about it.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

The late Lawrence Auster on the 'stupid party' and its support for amnesty:"

""So the death of the GOP as a national party is assured—at the hands of the very ethnic group whom in their fantastical mindless delusion they are now embracing, thinking it will mean their salvation.""

That this was done was the result of the GOP having embraced another ethnic group.

Anonymous said...

THE 3RD WORLD WAR ON THE 3RD MOST POPULOUS NATION ON EARTH (USA)

The world’s most corrupt and criminal govt, the US govt gangsters, are threatening to flood the alien with millions of 3rd world aliens (criminals, thugs, crooks, terrorists) again (amnesty).

Thank God Boehner and Republicans had better sense and have stopped it.

The USA is the 3rd most populous nation on earth--after China and India, a fact no radio talk show or paper ever mentions. The first 2 DO NOT let people immigrate but instead export their people to reduce the population burden.

The world’s biggest criminal gang, the US govt, is therefore the biggest criminal gang in the world to import more aliens--despite being the 3rd most populous nation on earth. We are running out of water, food, land, jobs, healthcare, federal money, etc. This is a 3rd world war on the 3rd most populous nation on earth.

This is THE MOST IMPORTANT reason to ban immigration--3rd most populous nation on earth. Please call all radio talk shows, write to newspapers and congressmen and tell them this basic fact and tell them to BAN all immigration.

Another solution: We, the people, must ban immigration. This can only be done by binding superseding national referenda. To see how we can do that, please see National Citizen’s Initiative For Democracy, ncid.us

(ncid dot us)

Mr Drab said...

Is the neocon The Weekly Standard acknowledging the so-called "Sailer Strategy"?

Weekly Standard Wakes Up - VDARE