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Bloomberg’s Ramesh Ponnuru: Immigration Is the New Litmus Test for GOP
Breitbart.com ^ | 9 Jan 2016 | Julia Hahn

Posted on 01/09/2016 6:34:17 PM PST by Rockitz

In a Friday Bloomberg op-ed, Ramesh Ponnuru details how “immigration is rapidly becoming a defining issue for American conservatism.” Ponnuru suggests that this may prove problematic for donor-class favorite Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who supports immigration expansions—which Pew Research says are opposed by more than 9 in 10 GOP voters.

Just as conservative candidates for President cannot be selected if they support abortion, Obamacare or gun control, Ponnuru explains that the new litmus test of conservatism is immigration. “Conservatives are now starting to see a candidate’s position on immigration as an index of his conservatism in general,” Ponnuru writes.

Ponnuru notes how the conservative creed’s adoption of immigration limits mirrors the Party’s transformation on the issue of abortion. That is, just as today a conservative candidate cannot run for president supporting abortion, they can no longer run for president supporting amnesty and transformative large-scale immigration:

Abortion politics followed a similar trajectory. Opposing abortion wasn’t always considered part and parcel of conservatism. Everybody considered Senator John Tower of Texas a movement conservative even though he supported legal abortion. Over time, though, as conservatives grew more opposed to abortion and liberals more supportive of it, it became an issue that voters used to sort candidates by ideology… voters who knew that a candidate opposed it could also be reasonably sure that he would oppose gun control and tax increases — or, at least, that he was more likely to oppose it than someone who favored legal abortion. Candidates who favored legal abortion started to have real trouble getting support from a lot of conservative voters. Eventually, such candidates came to be seen as not being conservatives at all. Today, favoring tighter control of immigration is becoming a stand-in for conservatism in the same way.

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: immigration; rubio2016
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Duh! This has been a festering problem for over 50 years and Trump and Cruz appear to be the only GOP candidates willing to fix it.
1 posted on 01/09/2016 6:34:17 PM PST by Rockitz
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To: Rockitz

As many have pointed out, we lose the country if Dems add 10 million new voters to their roles. Game over.

Abortion, gay marriage, whatever. All irrelevant. Dems will own the nation.

Illegal immigration (and legal) is now an existential threat to our country.

Thank God Trump had the balls to say, “BUILD THE WALL!”


2 posted on 01/09/2016 6:37:21 PM PST by TigerClaws
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To: Rockitz
This isn't a "litmus" issue. It is a non-negotiable issue. Why would anybody support someone who wants to contribute to our country's very own demise?
3 posted on 01/09/2016 6:37:56 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
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To: Rockitz

Adios Rinio.


4 posted on 01/09/2016 6:42:17 PM PST by WENDLE (Trump is not bought . He is no puppet.)
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To: TigerClaws

Interestingly enough I think the GOP is actually making in roads with the 1st and 2nd generations of legal Hispanic immigrants who value GOP morality and want to protect their jobs from new illegal immigrants. Trump can actually be the GOP candidate who solidifies that base for the long term.


5 posted on 01/09/2016 6:42:24 PM PST by Rockitz (This is NOT rocket science - Follow the money and you'll find the truth.)
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To: Rockitz

Also for the Democrats.


6 posted on 01/09/2016 6:43:14 PM PST by Brilliant
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To: All
...this may prove problematic for donor-class favorite Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who supports immigration expansions—which Pew Research says are opposed by more than 9 in 10 GOP voters.

That's great to hear that Rubio's ceiling is 10% in the primaries.

7 posted on 01/09/2016 6:44:57 PM PST by Rockitz (This is NOT rocket science - Follow the money and you'll find the truth.)
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To: Rockitz

You have laws or you don’t. You have borders or you don’t. You have a country or you don’t.


8 posted on 01/09/2016 6:50:56 PM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Rockitz

Immigration isn’t left or right issue. It isn’t a conservative or liberal issue. It is an American issue.


9 posted on 01/09/2016 6:51:39 PM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: TigerClaws

Exactly. The Democrat’s endgame is to add another 50 million gibmedats who will vote for them for another 200 years, and everyone knows this. Therefore, Ponmuru, like other leftists are trying to frame this as a “litmus test” in the most pejorative manner.

Democrat’s have long sneered in moral condescension about a Conservative “anit-abortion litmus test” all the while that they, themselves, demanded and iron-clad litmus test of pro-abortion. Likewise, they are now trying to frame immigration as a “litmus test” with a clear racial undercurrent. This is yet another attempt by the Left to enact a politically incorrect law, as in, anyone who supports strict immigration reform is a racist, xenophobe, whatever.

I will have none of it! I will not allow the Left to enact another of their phony politically incorrect laws that always strictly favors their political agenda, which is aggregating power to themselves at the expense of freedom and everyone else.


10 posted on 01/09/2016 6:53:44 PM PST by Obadiah (Jeb! Because America needs more cowbell.)
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To: Rockitz
just as today a conservative candidate cannot run for president supporting abortion, they can no longer run for president supporting amnesty

That's not too reassuring.

Even though they can't support abortion, it goes on none the less.

I don't want that happening with immigration.

11 posted on 01/09/2016 6:54:24 PM PST by MUDDOG
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To: Rockitz

It’s been the raging issue for conservatives that has been purposely stifled by the establishment since at least 2006.

They nominated McAmnesty after TWO amnesty attempts.

The Cheap Labor Express owns the GOP.


12 posted on 01/09/2016 6:55:18 PM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Rockitz

Globalists throughout the West are beginning to face challenge from native peoples seeing their homelands evaporate before their eyes.

It isn’t a right/left issue but that is how the Socialist Left likes to pitch it to the sheep. “Oh, wouldn’t want to be one of those right wing extremist hate supremacists!”.

It isn’t strictly in America that they are facing blowback.


13 posted on 01/09/2016 6:56:46 PM PST by a fool in paradise (The goal of Socialism is Communism. Marx and Lenin were in agreement on this.)
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To: Lurkinanloomin

Brought to you by Trump after 15 years of screaming about it on Free Republic.


14 posted on 01/09/2016 6:56:59 PM PST by The Toll
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To: central_va

England is realizing this, as is Germany, Poland, Sweden, France...


15 posted on 01/09/2016 6:57:57 PM PST by a fool in paradise (The goal of Socialism is Communism. Marx and Lenin were in agreement on this.)
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To: MUDDOG

Abortion is an issue that was mainstreamed in an incremental fashion and it can be overturned the same way. Informed consent, no government funding, and the recent Planned Parenthood videos all will turn the tide.


16 posted on 01/09/2016 6:59:15 PM PST by Rockitz (This is NOT rocket science - Follow the money and you'll find the truth.)
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To: Rockitz

“Transformative large-scale immigration” should get you shot on f’ing sight! No one has EVER supported that besides murderers.


17 posted on 01/09/2016 6:59:38 PM PST by The Toll
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To: Rockitz

Gee, it only took 20 years to notice?

California Proposition 187 (1994)

As Governor, Wilson was closely associated with California Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal immigrants from using health care, public education, and other social services in California.


18 posted on 01/09/2016 7:00:27 PM PST by donna (Radicalized Christians become missionaries; then, they tell everyone that Jesus loves them!)
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To: Lurkinanloomin

With Trump and Cruz at the top that will hopefully change.


19 posted on 01/09/2016 7:00:53 PM PST by Rockitz (This is NOT rocket science - Follow the money and you'll find the truth.)
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To: a fool in paradise

An unemployment rate of around 5% and wages rising slowly used to be called prosperity and was a disable thing.

Now it is considered an economic calamity by the fascist gloBULList cabal and nations rush to flood their domestic labor market with humans from all over the world without considering the cultural mismatch with their citizenry. It is like their citizens don’t even exist.


20 posted on 01/09/2016 7:02:06 PM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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