Markos’ column in The Hill this week focuses on the use of the immigration issue in Republican campaigning:
The irony is superb. In an election cycle that has seen many Republicans pin their fading hopes on a last-ditch effort to demonize immigrants, their party appears well on its way to nominating the candidate least hostile to immigration....
... while the public is concerned about immigration and wants a solution, the solutions preferred are practical ones, nowhere near as reactionary as those proposed by the rabid anti-immigrant zealots.
Today’s Republicans, however, have nothing better to run on. Their ideology is tired, having failed the test of governance. The public is no longer scared into submission by threats of terrorists on every corner. But since fear-mongering worked so well for the GOP for so long, party leaders clearly feel that they have nothing to lose by trying to turn hard-working immigrants into their new bogeymen.
And it’s true. They have nothing to lose ... except more elections.
Hey, if Republicans want to surrender whole regions and demographic sectors of the country to the Democratic Party for a generation or two, who are we to save them from themselves?