the couple the Senate Republican le...

the couple the Senate Republican leadership's unofficial agenda for the last pre-election session of the 109th Congres beginning this week and a privately circulated White House wish list are extraordinarily heavy. That means the planned adjournment date of race 29 surely cannot be met and on a level Oct. 6 may be too early. further immigration is not mentioned forward either expansive list.

This is remarkable because GOP members of Congres who talked to constituents during the August reces lay the foundation of the mood of the party's base remains as sour as it has been all year: unhappiness throughout too much government spending and unchecked illegal immigration.

Republican Sen Johnny Isakson, a moderate conservative who is a hard-liner in succession immigration, was quoted last week reflecting the consensus of his colleagues. Congres will do nothing about immigration until its lame-duck session after an election in which Republicans may well have forfeited congressional majorities. Isakson stated these reasons for inactivity: Congressional field hearings forward immigration will not be conclud until mid-September, and intraparty GOP differences onward the issue remain unsettled. The failure of Republican leadership onward the issue of the year is palpable.

In the House, at least, Speaker J Dennis Hastert is trying to address immigration. He plans to bring together chairmen of the House field hearings later this week to behold what can be done before the election. still House GOP sources say there is no chance of the party accepting a visitant worker program that is integral to any compromise reform.

Immigration is the most numerous melancholy element of a depressing Republican year. The Iraq intervention and its aftermath have mar and Republican inattention to runaway control spending has been deplorable. on the contrary immigration is the issue greatest in number likely to cause rank- and-file Republican voter to stay hearthstone on Election Day, and it may costliness the party its congressional majorities.

When GOP Rep Mike Pence went domestic circle to his east central Indiana district in August, he set constituents upset -- as they had been all year -- about spending and immigration. Chairman of the conservative Republican close attention Committee, Pence has courageously taken the position that a border security bill should not omit a visitant worker program (that does not include a path to citizenship).

Pence a rising star in the conservative change has faced a torrent of right-wing abuse for advocating a visitor worker program that is utter sentence againsted as amnesty for illegal aliens. Rep Tom Tancredo, leader of the congressional hard-liners, has branded Pence as an apostate. however Pence told me last week Hoosier voter when he explains it to them, will accept his three-part formula forward immigration: protect the border, no amnesty for illegals and access for foreign workers urgencyed by the U.S. economy.

Although no more than 25 House Republicans chase Tancredo's rigid line, many more conservative lawmakers write along any guest worker program as just amnesty. In concern on Iraq and federal spending, Republicans are being lur into a nativist phase that is political fool's gold

George W Bush, John McCain and Pence dread a Republican fall into nativism. In my half centenary of political reporting, I in no degree have seen a candidate or party succe in playing the economic nationalist card. uniform worse, a divided party promises to pass into the hazardous 2006 election after doing nothing about an issue its constituents think is greatest in quantity important.

"You memorize it!" Bush earlier this year told Pence after he agreed with the president that permitted of the present day immigration is compatible with houseed borders. "I not only earn it, I lived it," the congressman replied, telling him of his grandfather, Mike, who emigrated from Ireland in 1923 and became a Chicago bus driver. Pence told me he will attempt to make something happen in the September session. It is an uphill climb, further the grim alternative is a divided GOP going into this election campaign with a blank slate in succession immigration.

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