Oddly enough, a series of recent articles make the claim that if the GOP doesn't enact a "guest" worker scheme or take other steps to encourage even more illegal immigration, they run the risk of losing the (mythical) "Hispanic Vote".

First up is Ed Gillespie ("chairman of the Republican National Committee in the 2004 election cycle. His firm, Quinn Gillespie & Associates, represents clients who support a temporary guest worker program."). He offers the ludicrously titled "Populists Beware! The GOP must not become an anti-immigration party." I already responded to it in comments here. Perhaps we Americans could pool our money and hire him to come up with a way that the GOP could oppose illegal immigration while at the same time not appearing "anti-immigrant". Of course, just about anyone could come up with that simple plan, so I guess we won't have to hire Gillespie after all.

And, a few days ago Reuters reporter John Whitesides offered the same shtick.

Now comes Bill Kristol with "Y is for Yahoo", which refers to the "Anti-immigration yahoo Tom Tancredo".

He goes on to recite a series of instances of Republican candidates coming out against illegal immigration and then failing or facing problems.

But, since being opposed to illegal immigration is "populist" and since most voters are concerned about it, perhaps Kristol has - oddly enough! - missed the real reason those politicians have faced problems.

Namely, that the GOP is corrupt and will refuse to support or even work to undermine any candidate who opposes the importation of cheap labor. If Kristol is going to bring up these cases, isn't it rather odd that he would ignore that aspect? Very, very odd.