"A lot of FReepers never seem to understand. Most people don't make 100K a year and don't give a damn about the capital gains cut or a balanced budget."
That's certainly true of the pro-life base.
Specter's chair of judiciary rankled them, the Schiavo disaster infuriated them, but with Miers they were headed out the door.
The GOP leadership saw it, and after some macho posturing (and too much nasty namecalling), they caved and gave the clearly Catholic and pro-life Alito. Which brought back the pro-lifers as snug as a bug in a rug.
Pro-lifers are mostly religious, and mostly not very rich, and many are almost indifferent to economic issues.
Border Conservatives, many of them, are in the middle class or the blue collar class - these are the people feeling direct economic pressure and insecurity from illegals, because they're the folks who want the jobs employers won't give them, because illegals cost a ;ot less.
Bush and the Senate Republicans have very clearly sided with the business conservatives, who want that cheap labor. Thus, Bush's speech ignored the issue of employer crackdown, but focused on the employer's paradise of guest worker: illegal prices without any legal risk! Woo-hoo!...IF you're a big employer.
If you're a blue collar Republican, this is a threat to you - never mind the principle of the border or the terror threat or anything else.
Some compromise had to be found that would appease Border Conservatives without blowing up the business conservatives and cutting the contribution gravy train...and the way to thread that needle is to start a wall on the border.
That takes time - everybody can adjust.
It really cuts the flow, which allows for eventual assimilation. BorderBots, many of them, also want deportation, but even if that never happens, the problem won't keep getting worse. There will be illegal attitrion, on this side of the wall, and assimilation. The problem will eventually take care of itself.
In the short term, the fact OF a wall being built will give the BorderBots something they have GOT to protect...by returning Republican majorities to keep the wall construction going. By the time the long term hits, many BorderBots will have seen the illegal PRESSURE diminish (but the cutting off of the flood) and many will feel less threatened and more inclined to accept a gradual regularization.
But you can never get to square one if the flood continues.
Put up the wall, but DON'T unleash legions of prosecutors on employers, and the biggest thing that would piss off the business base will be avoided. They're using illegals now, and they'll have time to adjust to the gradual titration down of new illegals.
NO wall AND guest worker AND no stepped-up enforcement against business was what Bush presented, and that's piggish in favor of one interest. It won't stand, because it CAN'T.
The only real question is whether the Republican House can coax the Senate in off the ledge and add in the wall as the irreducible part of ITS compromise bill in committee. Do that, and you probably keep Congress in November.
Do less than that, and the wall becomes part of the Republican Platform in 2007 as they put themselves back together and try to take Congress back and keep the White House in 2008.