The Moment Everyone's Been Waiting For

The strategy for the Dems seems to have been "Offer no platform, criticize everything the Republicans have been doing, and hope their popularity collapses, thus electing us since we're the only other party to vote for."

The only problem with this strategy is that second part, the criticizing. The only people less popular than the Republicans these days are the Democrats. Going on T.V. and griping didn't seem to be helping much. What's worse, the only sticks the Democrats kept grabbing to bludgeon the administration had to do with foreign policy.

The war in Iraq (which I'm in no mood to defend) is not going well in the eyes of the American people. However, just because people don't like the way the current bunch are handling things doesn't mean they're just going to let any ol' bunch of lunatics take a swing at it.

And as for this domestic spying thing, the American people are enthustiastic supporters of it. They love wire-tapping, under the assumption (which isn't too bad an assumption, I might point out) that only other people's phones are getting tapped. The surest way to boost the president's approval ratings to the 70's would be to impeach the guy over it.

So, however gamely they were trying it, this campaign strategy had no chance of working, and if you were to put some of these strategerists in a quiet room and ask them totally off the record, they'd admit it. What they had to hope for was that somehow, the Republicans would fall apart on their own.

Well, this is it. This is the moment the Republicans actually start to show the strains in their coalition. And the issue is:

Immigration

This issue is going to absolutely explode. It's been simmering for a while now, but these protests over the weekend have really pushed this issue onto the front-burner. And when there are images like this one to accompany it, I suspect they aren't going to get the response the protestors were hoping for.

The big problem here is that while the American people are against illegal immigration, Republicans are wildly against illegal immigration. And the Republicans in congress (for reasons I'm still trying to figure out) have placed themselves way to the left of not only Republicans but the American people.

If there isn't some kind of action on illegal immigration (and by "action" I'm talking about something really draconian), the Republican base will be in open revolt well before November.

So, what should the Democrats do? Well, they're already doing two-thirds of what they should be doing, i.e. nothing and hoping for the best, respectively. They should go into total media blackout mode, no appearances by anyone. Nancy Pelosi, I'm looking in your direction.

But still. I wouldn't bet on them reclaiming either house of congress. Because, frankly, they just can't help themselves. They'll end up doing one of two things: A) go to go on T.V. and start calling everyone who opposes illegal immigration racist, or 2) get overconfident and do something utterly moronic like file articles of impeachment over the (as mentioned, enthusiastically supported) domestic wire-tapping.

This is all just the politics. As for my take on the issue itself, well, that's a story for another day.