"They are so fucked."

Sorry for the obscenity, but I was wowed by this statement by the director of the National Immigration Forum in Tim Dickinson's excellent essay, "Blame Pedro" in Rolling Stone (which repeatedly cites, of all people, tax-obsessed Grover Norquist). He makes a strong case that the immigrant-bashing by the Republicans could greatly benefit the Democrats (assuming they don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as they so often have).

"The die is cast," says Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, one of the nation's top immigrant-advocacy groups. "The Republican Party is doing to the nation what it did to California — turning it from purple to blue — because they've offended the fastest-growing group of new voters. It's only a matter of how far-reaching and how long it lasts. They are so fucked."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18072935/blame_pedro

THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES treat immigration as if it were 2008's answer to gay marriage: a wedge issue to knock independents and conservative Democrats into the Republican column. But while sixty-three percent of Americans opposed gay marriage in 2004, sixty percent favor comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship. And while immigrant-bashing drives Hispanics away from the GOP, it doesn't boost turnout among white voters.

Here are other choice quotes:

"This issue is destroying the Republican Party of the West and Southwest — annihilating it wholesale," says Richard Nadler, president of the archconservative think tank Americas Majority. A study of precinct-level data released by Nadler's group projects that a full-scale backlash among Hispanic voters would drive formerly red Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Florida and Iowa into the blue column in November — and with them, the presidency.

Norquist points to an even more dire precedent: In 1884, the GOP attacked Democrats as the party of Romanism. "It cost them the Roman Catholic vote for 110 years," he says. "So it is entirely possible for a political party to be that stupid. It is my hope that it is not possible for a party to be that stupid twice."

To staunch the bleeding, Bush loyalists installed Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida — himself a Cuban immigrant — as the head of the Republican National Committee. But he resigned less than a year later, apparently unable to stomach the nativist ads being crafted by the party's campaign committees. "It was sort of like having a black man running the Ku Klux Klan," says García. "He had to leave."