Rift in GOP on Immigration

The Washington Times reports on a deep divide among the GOP on immigration. A member of the Republican National Committee from President Bush’s home state yesterday escalated the rebellion against Mr. Bush’s choice, Senator Mel Martinez, who supported the Senate immigration reform bill the last Congress, to head the committee going into the 2008 presidential elections. Mel Martinez’s opponents are ready to challenge the White House’s efforts to force on the party a general chairman whose views on illegal immigration, they say, are opposed by 80 percent of the electorate.  The question is whether the Martinez fight will be a skirmish or a full-scale rebellion,” said New Jersey RNC member David Norcross, a former RNC general counsel who oversaw the 2004 Republican presidential nominating convention in New York. “I think it will be a skirmish, but I am preparing for a full-scale rebellion.” One of Mr. Martinez’s supporters, Florida RNC member Paul Senft Jr., told the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper: “With some people, the issue of amnesty is a litmus test and anything short of a concentration camp is amnesty.” A Virginia-based group, English First, has created a Web site, StopMartinez.com, that declares the senator from Florida is: “Wrong on English. Wrong on Amnesty. Wrong for the Republican National Committee.”

Click here for the story.

Postscript.  Martinez wins!  On Jan. 19, the Republican Party turned Friday to a Cuban-American senator from Florida to carry their message into the 2008 presidential election campaign.  With only a smattering of dissent, the Republican National Committee voted Sen. Mel Martinez in as the party’s general chairman.  Click here for the full story.

KJ