Nope, still not going away.
Well great, now Marco Rubio has drawn Sarah Palin's ire for his involvement with immigration reform. Sarah Palin, the high priestess of the
conservative base!
"Just like they did with Obamacare, some in Congress intend to ‘Pelosi’ the amnesty bill," Palin posted on Facebook on Monday, referring to the liberal Democratic House leader, Nancy Pelosi. "They’ll pass it in order to find out what’s in it. And just like the unpopular, unaffordable Obamacare disaster, this pandering, rewarding-the-rule-breakers, still-no-border-security, special-interests-ridden, 24-pound disaster of a bill is not supported by informed Americans.
All right, I'm not sure I follow much of that, but I have it the good authority of several tea party-to-English translators that she doesn't like immigration reform because of
reasons. She went on to attack Rubio by name as an "amnesty supporter" and made a prediction:
"As the Senate moves to pass amnesty, the only bright spot in this travesty is the rallying revolution we can look forward to," Palin wrote on Monday. "For just as opposition to Obamacare became a rallying cry for the 2010 midterm elections, opposition to this fundamentally transforming amnesty bill will galvanize the grass roots in next year’s elections. And 2014 is just around the corner."
Sounds like that's a threat aimed more at Republicans than Democrats, a suggestion that anyone not toeing the line on this issue is going to find themselves booted. This is where I still find things sketchy—yes, it's in the Republican Party's long-term interest to support immigration reform, but expecting the current rabid base to view anything in the "long term" is, well, insane. For people like Sarah Palin, "long term" is the span of an entire governor's tenure or Fox News contract period, and you can't expect them to pay attention
that long.
So how do you get a very small, very loud, conspicuously racially motivated base to support a push towards a more inclusive party—especially when the base's heroes are so very cranky about it?