The Congressional townhall events of August were a perfect time to block comprehensive immigration reform (aka amnesty), yet few have showed up so far. The reaction to amnesty in 2013 is much more muted than it was in 2007.

One reason it's muted is because rightwing groups are concentrating on other, much less important things like Obamacare. One such group is the Heritage Foundation, and another is a coalition of Brent Bozell's "ForAmerica" and the Tea Party Patriots. Instead of concentrating on the far more important amnesty issue, they're concentrating on the much less important Obamacare.

And, the person in charge of Bozell's "Defund Obamacare" campaign admits their cause is futile (link). Questions by Molly Ball of The Atlantic in bold, followed by the answers from Scott Hogenson (campaign manager for "Defund Obamacare"):

And what would you like to see Congress do in response to that message?

Mind you, we don't advocate the passage or defeat of legislation or the election or defeat of individuals for public office. But what we would like to see happen is a continuing resolution passed that funds the entirety of the federal government, with the lone exception of Obamacare. It's broken, it's a train wreck, and people shouldn't have to pay for it.

What do you say to all the politicians and pundits who say that the president is never going to sign a measure that guts his biggest legislative achievement -- that this isn't realistic, that it just won't work?

Well, what will work? What will work? So much of the discussion of this has centered around the process. I haven't been in Washington that long, but one thing I've noticed is that people love to talk about process, they love to talk about tactics, and they tend to lose sight of the larger policy ramifications. We are already seeing the ramifications of Obamacare -- full-time employees being demoted to part-time, premiums going up -- this is a policy that was ill-conceived right from the get-go, and it's being implemented in a weird, destructive, ad hoc manner. It's pretty apparent it's a very bad thing.

It sounds like you're saying you have no idea, in practice, how this could actually get through Congress.

Well, anything can succeed, just like anything can fail. You have to at least try. It's up to the person in the arena. You know, if you're not in the arena, you're absolutely guaranteed to lose on a very important, critical issue. It's inevitably framed in Republican-and-Democrat terms. I get that. But in terms of real people, real lives, it's a big, big problem.

Want to do something about this? Look up those who chat with @BrentBozell and @JennyBethM and ask why they're wasting time on a futile effort that would be much better spent opposing amnesty.