Republicans face currently an enormous challenge that will define GOP’s future.
However, they lose with both head and tail. If GOPs do not support Senate’s Bill, they will reaffirm many unpopular misconceptions about GOP values. If they support the Senate version as it is, GOPs will look defeated and Hispanic voters will remember their bitter legislative opposition. Such situation only affects the bill, and therefore the Hispanic community. The remedy for this sort of stalemate is not only up to the GOP, but up to the Hispanic community. Hispanics will have to send a different message to GOP. Such message must be “let’s do political-capital Zero-base budgeting”.
GOP’s balance in the political-capital budget is in red numbers currently. Republican internal politics changed their policy preferences in regards to the reform making them look like an intolerant political Party. Most prominent fact is the past primary election, in which “self-deportation” played a strategic role as a programmatic issue that appealed Tea Party members and involuntary discouraged Hispanic voters. Nonetheless, GOP along with Marco Rubio’s leadership have demonstrated that they can cope with the radical wing of their Party. Likewise, they have shown that insults and sparks of racisms within the Party may be overcome and diminished. There is little to no doubt about Democrats championing immigration reform over Republicans. However, that does not mean Republicans do not want the reform.
On the other hand, Democrats have a very good balance with the Hispanic community political-capital budget. Democrats have won a blaming-republicans battle so that they look as a truly welcoming Party. Such comfort zone is only possible given the fact that Democrats did not have to undergo primary election for last electoral cycle. If Democrats had had to run primary campaigns, their political preferences would have shifted away the Hispanic voter either because of their Labor Unions political alliances. However, democrats were lucky and their balance in the political-capital budget is in black numbers now.
Thus, GOP will have to find the way to claim more funding from the political-capital budget. That means, whoever organizes the Budget will have to start from zero and give each Party what they ideologically deserve. That also means that whoever organizes the Budget will have to forget/forgive previous political “performance”. Zero-base budgeting for immigration reform means both political Parties will have to come to Hispanic voters with their own ideological arguments for capturing their votes and loyalty after Immigration Reform gets approved. Furthermore, Hispanic voters will have to commit with GOP that no loyalty conclusion will be made on who “gave” them papers after the bill gets approved. With Republicans in red and Democrats in black, Democrats’ confining party threats to Republicans will not make GOP change current policy preferences.
In sum, GOPs will only change their Immigration Reform preferences as soon as they see chances for alluring Hispanic voters. However, Republicans have proved they are not able change the current configuration of the immigration debate; it is only up to the Latino community to change the political economy of the Immigration bill. Historic budgeting does not help anybody to approve the bill. Unless Republicans find the way to change Hispanic perception about GOP’s Immigration Reform opposition, the only way-out of such stalemate is for Hispanics to pledge there will be neither winner nor loser out of the Immigration reform approval. Afterwards, both parties may come to Hispanics with their arguments in order to get politically funded in a zero-base budgeting political exercise.
Categories: Politics
