The End of The Republican Grassroots

Moonie Times:

The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors’ rebellion over President Bush’s immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, The Washington Times has learned. Faced with an estimated 40 percent falloff in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee’s chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff and told them they were out of work, effective immediately.

Guess they didn't like hearing about how many people hung up the phone while screaming "Aztlan! Reconquista! Brown hordes!"

I get the feeling that Republicans have created a monster, and now that they realize they need a broader coalition to win elections, they have no idea how to put the genie back in the bottle. The problem is that the Republican base is a very loose coalition, despite the message discipline. The corporate base, the elite, wants the cheap labor. And Rove hasn't figured out who he can do without: the immigrant-haters or the growing Latino population. There's no good place for them to go on this one. It's really fascinating to watch the GOP crack up over this issue.

I suppose that they're expecting to make up for the loss in low-dollar money with corporate donations. But that corporate money won't help you if nobody's listening to the message...

UPDATE: Peggy Noonan's all hacked off because Bush is trying to do to his base what he's done to the rest of the country the last six years: give them the finger. Sorry Peggy. You voted for him, you got to live with him.