This good day is getting even better. Now Politico reports that "The elusive goal of 70 votes for the Senate immigration bill started to slip from the Gang of Eight’s grasp on Wednesday, as potential swing GOP votes began to peel away from the reform effort." Splendid news, in that it further reduces the odds of any movement in the House.
This is the worst possible time to throw a life preserver to the delightfully endangered Republican Party, and successful immigration reform--even inadequate immigration reform--would be just that: a political lifesaver for a party that by rights should be pushed--and held--under.
No matter how wretched, any passed bill would be hailed by GOPers as legislative proof of their cultural enlightenment, their philosophical turnaround, the end of their despicably nativist days. It would mostly be a lie, of course, but that the GOP does exceptionally well. All the party needs is something in writing, signed by the president, to certify its rehabilitation and thus con millions of Latinos.
Republicans could pull it off. They just need a bill, any bill, which some Senate Democrats seem foolish enough to procure for them--all in a misguided, shortsighted attempt to deliver reform straightaway, as promised.
No, no, deliver it in 2015, with Democratic majorities, in a more liberal, Democratic way. Give nothing to Republicans; deny them all opportunities to take credit in the run-up to 2014--which is one of the major routes to possessing those delivering majorities in 2015.
That, anyway, is my take.