The pensants are restive: Ron Brownstein says [on KCRW’s To the Point, at 20:40] that Scott Walker’s pursuing a “losing strategy” by a) talking about reducing legal immigration and b) supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Obergefell. According to Brownstein, Walker was the man who could have bridged the GOP’s blue collar populist and social conservative half and its moderate, upper income wing. But now he’s alienated the latter. …
Seems like a highly suspect bit of punditry to me! Has Walker really burned his bridges with white collar, upscale GOPs with these two moves? Those Republicans probably don’t want to reduce legal immigration and aren’t bothered by same-sex marriage. But, unless they’re DC strategists or corporate CEOs, is it really important to them that immigration levels not ever be reduced? If the quota goes from 1 million a year to, say, 800,000 — that’s a killer for white collar GOPs? Might they likewise be willing to tolerate a candidate who formally supports a transparently doomed effort to amend the Constitution — the way GOP moderates in the 1980s tolerated Ronald Reagan’s various amendments about abortion and school prayer (and his opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment). …
This seems like a big flaw in the accepted “don’t-please-the-Tea-Party” analytic framework: Intensity matters, and it may be entirely possible to mobilize one wing of the party on issues they care a lot about (e.g. immigration) without sacrificing broader appeal — as long as those aren’t issues the other wings of the party care that much about. …
Thesis: Brownstein instinctively resists the idea that an immigration control position could ever be smart politically. His Next America empire is at stake! …
Further study: Does the same “intensity counts” logic apply, in mirror-image fashion, to Democrats? Maybe not. To pick one issue, “higher taxes” may please the party’s left wing, but it’s hard to argue this isn’t something the party’s moderates care about. …
Help! Scott Walker’s losing Ron Brownstein! http://t.co/NFxqoMwgmz
And the NRO/Commentary types on Twitter! RT @kausmickey: Help! Scott Walker’s losing Ron Brownstein! http://t.co/2eIuSSH3XL
Help! Walker’s losing Ron Brownstein! http://t.co/GEUUQlTj5Q
I probably make it into that “moderate upper income” segment and I worry about the Central American invasion. 3 small apartment complexes in my town have become all Hispanic in the last 10 years. I can count over 30 kids getting on the school bus whenever I get stuck behind one and there are 2 stops for those apartments and there are kindergarten, elementary, 5-6 grade, middle school and high school buses. That’s a lot of kids and those apartments aren’t paying much taxes. The local police say that’s where they get all the calls and there was a murder there a few years ago, very rare here. What I worry about is those kids getting to late teens and feeling very hostile. The area is mainly pretty upper income and lots of McMansions. Understandably, those kids will feel envy and anger.
Regarding gay marriage, I think its a big mistake that we’ve gotten propagandized into with the “Its about love” nonsense, which ought to be an argument against it. But its probably something that divides people by age, with the young people having been subjected to massive propaganda in the schools.
Ron Brownstein’s “highly suspect bit of punditry” on Scott Walker and #immigration, via @kausmickey http://t.co/xeAlaO80J1
Walker now targeted to “shut up about immigration” http://t.co/VgU56gBpwy #GOP you have a big problem in leadership.
.@tamratellsit http://t.co/bO4hfLBFSL