It looks like the Immigration Hypochondriacs might just make permanent the current amnesty program of useless laws and inflexible idealogues which has allowed the current situation to be created in the first place. Most people do not understand the stakes. Those that do, don’t care. If the Immigration Bill fails to pass, that will end the conservative revolution. It will have officially run its course.

Mark it down as a product of the movement’s success. Taxes are low, our military is still being invested in and modernized. Free market practices are still free and infecting much of government. Faith and family are not stigmas anymore. George Bush will go down in history as being incredibly successful. He cut taxes 3 times and helped keep our economy from taking a big hit from 9-11. He did work to slow the discretionary spending (much of the growth under Bush was in military and national defense). He made the lives of all our seniors better by leaps and bounds by making prescription drugs available to them at reasonable, free market prices. No child is being left behind. No federal money is being used to harvest the unborn for research. Parent’s must be notified and give permission before anyone can perform an abortion on their child. And he brought an end to partial birth abortion. He would have done more, but the far right was fed up with all this pogress and wanted control of the agenda – to keep it pure.

Basically we have done what the coalition could agree on. We hit the end of the tunnel when the far right started attacking conservative moderates as unclean and unworthy – starting with Harriet Miers. The Tancredo crowd (just another variant of the Buchananites) are so paranoid they cheer such isolationist stunts as not printing their propaganda in spanish to reach out to our new neighbors and co-workers and help them assimilate. I am sure many Latinos are grateful not to have to read the animosity coming from this minority.

While the coalition agreed on strengthening the borders, the immigration hypochondriacs cannot abide dealing reasonably with the illegal immigrants here now, and future immigrants, through a temporary guest worker program. So much so they would leave us with the current mess so they could stop what the rest of the coalition supports. They have decided to end the coalition – they will not support all its views. And in fact, they have had nothing but animosity and hate for those who do support the full package of immigration reform. Thus ends the GOP’s governing coalition.

Instead of a guest worker program without any path to citizenship we have the same old mess as today. Instead of being able to deport immigrants (legal and illegal) for violent crimes, we get to deal with them as career criminals. Instead of being able to crack down on employers and enforce tax and labor laws, we have will not have the tamper proof ID that eliminates all the excuses that make enforcement impossible. We are left with more of the same mess.

Oh, but the self destruction brought on by the immigration hypochondriacs does not end there. Not only do the save all that they ranted and raged against for years in place, they totally neuter the only national GOP force left in the country: Bush. There will be no new tax cut legislation now. Way to go dysfunctional GOP! There will be no more efforts to protect and respect human life. And so on. That is the end result of this, no more conservative agenda. If Bush fails on this bill he becomes the lame duck President and nothing passes. This is the short sightedness of the far right. If they cannot get what they want – so no one gets anything.

We have come to the end of the tolerance of the conservative movement as it is now constituted. Just like the Democrats have been boiled down to the fringe liberal base, so too has the GOP been boiled down to its inflexible, intolerant fringe base. It had to happen. As we knocked things off the conservative agenda we began to run out of common ground. We in the middle thought we could do more – the far right said they were done. No more compromises. No more impure legislation. No more impure nominations (take from our pool and no where else). No more.

Strangely, this may be the last thing we all agree on. No more. It is over. All polls show people jumping ship from the two now completely dysfunctional parties. The unaffiliated voters are growing in number and, therefore, in voice. We do not need mob (party) dogma. We will use our democratic right to pick the right solution – not the right party. In the new electronic age there is nothing to stop coalitions from forming and building quite rapidly. These topical coalitions will then measuring candidates relative to the goals of that coalition. Soon candidates will find they need endorsements from multiple ‘parties’ associated with specific topics. We will have the “low tax” group. The “win Iraq” group. The “comprehensive immigration reform” group. You would find me in all those camps. The candidate who carries the support of the most camps I associate with gets my vote.

I thought the GOP would weather this storm and pull back from the brink. Clearly I over estimated the right’s ability to lead. They have become the haven of people who cannot abide diversity of views. Just like the liberal democrat party. Thankfully America is more than the two parties. Much more. Bush’s term will basically end if this bill fails. He will be able to sustain the war effort – and could possibly pull out a success if things keep going they way they are with al-Qaeda being routed by the Iraqis themselves now. And all those who decided to end his term a year early will try and be Bush supporters again. Won’t that be funny? The people who see him as a traitor today trying to ride his coattails tomorrow. Which is, of course, all these fair weather allies have been doing this entire time.

It was a good run. Lots of good things were accomplished, starting with the end of life-time welfare back in the 1990’s. But we are out of common ground. Used it all up apparently (at least that is what the far right is telling us). Now on to other things, and other alliances.