GOP Boon or End of the Party?

Either way, Hugh Hewitt is predicting tonight's prime time immigration speech by the President, in which he'll call for National Guard troops to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border, will have far-reaching implications for the cohesion and strength of the party.

Peel split the Tories over corn. Gladstone split the Liberals over Ireland. The Democrats split over the Civil War, and a hundred years later over civil rights, Vietnam and the Soviet threat.

Will the GOP split over border security?  The answer will be in tonight's speech, which could be a huge boon for the president and the GOP, but could also be a disaster if the Adminsitration and Beltway experts refuse to take the base seriously.

PoliPundit is less ambivalent.

Tonight at 8 PM Eastern time, George Bush will commit political suicide on prime-time national TV.

His speech tonight will be the most lunk-headed political move ever made by a president of the United States. So be sure to watch; it’ll be one for the history books.

I'm not a line toer on Bush's immigration proposal.  But while I disagree with the policy, the politics of tonight's address are more difficult to gauge (for me, anyway).  Whenever there are cross-party and intra-party factions with complex overlapping and conflicting allegiances, to their wallets, their heritage, their parties, etc., I give the benefit of the doubt to the [unindicted] Architect when it comes to the political dynamics.

Hillary and Company had good reason to cheer when they thought Rove had been indicted.  Taking him out of the picture would not be simply an emotional win for Democrats.  The Bush-Rove machine is 5 for 5 and we have yet to see any evidence of it losing its efficacy when election days roll around.

So while I'm unhappy with Bush's take on immigration reform, I don't share Poli's fatalism or even Hewitt's ambivalence about the prospect of a party-wide chasm or Bush donning the political noose as a result of tonight's address.