NYT: Sharp Split With G.O.P. Leaders Hurt Bush on Immigration Plan

[DeepModem Mom]

Sharp Split With G.O.P. Leaders Hurt Bush on Immigration Plan
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: June 25, 2006
This article is by Adam Nagourney, Carl Hulse and Jim Rutenberg.

The decision by the House leadership to defy the president after he had put so much prestige on the line — including a rare prime-time Oval Office speech for a domestic initiative — amounted to a clear rebuke of the president on an issue that he has long held dear.

An account of the administration's push for the initiative, based on interviews with members of Congress and senior White House and Congressional officials, shows that Mr. Bush's immigration measure was derailed by an overly optimistic assessment by the White House of the prospects for building a bipartisan coalition in support of the bill and a fundamental misreading of the depth of hostility to the measure among House Republicans.

White House and Congressional Republican leaders acknowledged a sharp division over whether to focus on the short term or on the party's long-term political prospects. Mr. Bush's aides saw the House bill, which would make it a felony to live in this country illegally and would close off any chance to win legal status, as a threat to their attempts to broaden the party's appeal to Hispanic voters.

House Republican leaders saw Mr. Bush's approach, calling for tougher enforcement and avenues to legalize the illegal workforce as well as leaving a possible path to citizenship, as a threat to House Republicans already fearful of losing control of this fall's elections by angering Republican voters who viewed the plan as amnesty.

Mr. Bush's first attempt to advocate for the measure was described even by allies as initially muddled and tentative, permitting opponents to build a case against it before he made his Oval Office address. Republicans' apprehensions were cemented in June, when, in a special election for a vacant Congressional seat in California, Brian P. Bilbray, who ran on a pledge to build a fence along the border with Mexico, was elected after explicitly running against the president's position on immigration....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/washington/25bush.html?hp&ex=1151208000&en=9472cbf436846ed6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[yardwork]

1. Crime family in-fighting

"It's not personal, W. It's just business."

[spag68]

2. Bush-GOP

Don't even believe that this is true. You can bet that rove has some kind of weird plan to make these people look good for the electorate, Bush does not care about his polls, he wants rethug dominance forever.