Is Jeb Bush Committing Political Suicide With His Immigrastion Shift?

Let's get one thing clear up front: the freaking last thing that America needs is another Bush in the White House.  Admittedly, Jeb Bush isn't a total cretin like his brother W, but the so-called Bush dynasty needs to go the way of the Bourbon and Hapsburg dynasties.  Another Bush in the White House would be a serious basis for simply leaving the United States.  But perhaps that's a worry that we will not need to face.  At least not if Jeb Bush keeps up his talk of barring a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and providing instead some form of permanent guest worker status.  While it is true that today's GOP base views Hispanics (and, of course, blacks) as worthy of some form of non-voting serfdom, the changing Demographics of the country suggest that Bush's flip flopping plan could be political suicide.  Yes, he might win the GOP nomination, but he could well prove to be Mitt Romney II in the general election.  Politico looks at Bush's apparent effort to prostitute himself to the GOP base which at this point do everything short of donning KKK robs before assembling for local city and county committees and caucuses.  Here are some article excerpts:

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s changing immigration stances over the past two days sparked an outpouring of opposition on Tuesday, with liberal groups decrying the suggestion of of anything less than a pathway to full citizenship.

“It’s going to hurt Jeb Bush with Latino voters a lot more than it’s going to hurt the bipartisan process,” Frank Sharry, the head of the pro-reform group America’s Voice, said on a conference call with reporters.

Bush had long been a leading GOP advocate of comprehensive immigration reform and had backed a pathway to full citizenship in the past. But he released a book on Tuesday arguing for mere legal status, not full citizenship, for illegal immigrants already in the U.S. He has since backed off that position, saying he would support a pathway to citizenship provided it doesn’t create an incentive to enter the country illegally.

“Latino voters are saying they want an immigration bill that includes, and let me say this emphatically, a pathway to citizenship,” Service Employees International Union Secretary-Treasurer Eliseo Medina said, adding: “The notion of no citizenship is flat-out unacceptable. If that was a trial balloon, it’s time to let it go because if won’t fly.”

Democrats and liberals have long said legal status without citizenship would condemn illegal immigrants to a life as permanent second-class residents of the U.S.

“Are we really suggesting that the United States Congress will take a vote to relegate an entire community to underclass status?” asked National Council of La Raza immigration director Clarissa Martinez de Castro. “Latino voters will not look kindly on this.”

The poll, conducted by Latino Decisions, and sponsored by the SEIU, NCLR and America’s Voice, showed that Hispanic voters would punish Republicans if comprehensive immigration reform fails in 2013.

Three-fifths of Hispanic voters said they would blame the GOP if immigration reform doesn’t pass this year, and only 15 percent said they would blame Democrats. Sixty-four percent said Republicans are to blame for immigration reform having stalled over the past decade.

The cost to the GOP for blocking immigration reform is easy to see. Forty-four percent said supporting immigration reform could help a Republican earn their vote, while 42 percent said blocking such a bill would make them less likely to vote for a Republican. Even one-third of Hispanic Republicans said blocking immigration reform would make them less likely to back a member of their own party.

I continue to be dumbfound at the GOP's willingness to stake the party's future on pander to a dwindling number of elderly white racists and religious fanatics.