End of the Amnesty Bill...For Now...

Scott Rasmussen’s first law of politics is that America’s politicians aren’t nearly as important as they think they are. That law was clearly demonstrated earlier today when the United States Senate finally surrendered to the American people on immigration.

—Rasmussen Reports™

As everyone now knows, it was not even close. The U.S. Senate, via its failure to vote for cloture, has more than likely doomed the notorious Immigration Bill, aka the Amnesty Bill, for the remainder of the current Congressional term. Neither pushes from the Bushies, the Dems, nor the Repubs in favor of the bill were, in the end, enough to close off debate and put the bill over the top.

What's curious here is that for weeks, both sides have been telling us that the bill was "in the bag." Don't they have any old-fashioned counters in the Senate anymore? In the end, it wasn't even close.

As per the quote from pollster Scott Rasmussen above, what we are currently witnessing is a complete disconnect of both political parties from the people they represent. The fast-spending Republicans paid the price for this first in the Fall of 2006 when they were whomped at the polls by their own true believers who were disgusted that their former heroes had morphed, seemingly overnight, into tax-and-spend Democrats trying to buy votes via earmarks, favoritism, and perks. The Dems, of course, are now back at it again, but add insult to injury by mounting "investigation" after "investigation" of the Bush administration to score negative points prior to the next national election. The Democrat-controlled Congress thus has absolutely zero in the way of positive accomplishments in the current session.

Admittedly, the Dems, who never really got the "mandate" they trumpeted last fall, find themselves in the same position the Repubs were in over the last several years. They lack a true controlling majority in the House, and likewise lack a veto-proof majority in the Senate.

Which gets us back to the Amnesty Bill. What we must all understand here is that the illegal immigration issue itself wasn't the real issue at all for the professional politicians of both parties. Rather, the key issue for each party is to pander to the overwhelmingly Hispanic illegal community as a way to "lock" electoral victory for years to come. It is sheer ward-heeler politics, nothing else.

The Dems started it with their highly successful shenanigans in California under the Clintonistas, during which they may very well have fast-tracked enough legal and illegal Hispanic immigrants into voting citizenship (or its effective equivalent) to place that state's 53 electoral votes permanently off limits to the Repubs. They are currently attempting to replicate this feat in other former Republican strongholds, particularly those on the border with Mexico, such as New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. They're already heading Colorado to blue- statehood as well, although this is being achieved largely by emigration OUT of California and to Colorado by the leftists who've already wrecked California.

Alarmed, the Republicans in general and George Bush in particular, are attempting to sway this Latino vote in THEIR direction by pandering even more to the legal and illegal Hispanic electorate. Bottom line: Both parties want to use the Latino diaspora to thrust the opposing party permanently out of office.

Where does that leave the American people? I.e., those legal citizens who obey the laws, go to work, and pay our taxes. Well, nowhere, that's where. And they finally got as mad as hell and sent Congress a message they couldn't refuse. That's what happened. Both parties, in other words, forgot who they were representing. But they just found out.

The MSM and New Idiotarian Trent Lott are angrily blaming this on "right wing talk radio" and are chatting up a revival of the "fairness doctrine" to get them off the airwaves. But in point of fact, conservative talk radio at best articulated what the average American felt and explained to them how they could effectively register that opinion on Capital Hill. Which they did. In overwhelming numbers. This was, effectively, a grassroots effort that got a little boost on the radio dial.

Furthermore, "right-wing talk radio" certainly doesn't account for all the DEMOCRAT VOTERS who gave the thumbs-down to this bill, which is easy to infer from Rasmussen's report:

The final Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll before the vote found that just 22% of Americans supported the legislation. No amount of Presidential persuasion, Senate logrolling, and procedural tricks was able to overcome that solid bi-partisan lack of public support (although it’s breathtaking to consider how close a determined leadership could come to passing such an unpopular bill).

Yep, 22%. Given that at any time, more voters are registered as Dems rather than Repubs, Rasmussen's number gives a pretty good indication that even a majority of knee-jerk libs were uncomfortable with giving Amnesty to 12 million illegals, rewarding them for flaunting our laws.

This is a wake-up call for the Executive and Legislative branches. Whether or not they'll heed it is anybody's guess. They don't have a very good track record.

Nonetheless, in this many-chaptered story which doesn't yet have an ending, it's clear at this point that the good guys won at least the current round here. No real American truly opposes immigration. It's the illegal immigration that we oppose. Enforce the borders and minds and hearts will eventually follow.