Last week, I outlined the Republican strategy on immigration reform:
Step one: Obstruct all efforts at immigration reform, accuse the president of holding the border "hostage" even as he deports a record number of illegal immigrants.
Step two: Remind everyone how the president broke his promise to pass immigration reform.
Here's the thing: It's working. Jon Walker points to Gallup's weekly demographic poll from last week showing Hispanic support for Democrats collapsing. Latinos support Democrats by only a 13-point margin, down from 33 points back in March.
The numbers add a bit of context to Sen. Harry Reid's attempt to fit the DREAM Act into the Defense Authorization bill, and Sen. Robert Menendez' effort to introduce a doomed immigration-reform bill in the lame-duck session. But Democrats have relied on symbolic gestures and Republican intolerance for far too long--dealing with this stuff now just serves to remind Latino voters how much Democrats took them for granted over the past two years. Republicans don't even really need to win too many Latino votes -- the demographics of the country are such that when Latinos are on the fence, Democrats lose elections.
