In Politics It's All About Timing, Timing, Timing

Hillary vs. The Donald

2/26/2016 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com

In a Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump race -- which, the Beltway keening aside, seems the probable outcome of the primaries -- what are the odds the GOP can take the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court?

If Republicans can unite, not bad, not bad at all.

Undeniably, Democrats open with a strong hand.

There is that famed "blue wall," those 18 states and D.C. with a combined 242 electoral votes, just 28 shy of victory, that have gone Democratic in every presidential election since 1988.

The wall contains all of New England save New Hampshire; the Acela corridor (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland); plus Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin in the Middle West; and the Pacific coast of California, Oregon, Washington -- and Hawaii.

Changing demography, too, favors the Democrats. Barack Obama carried over 90 percent of the black vote twice and in 2012 carried over 70 percent of the Hispanic and Asian votes. These last two voting blocs are the fastest growing in the USA.

A third Democratic advantage is simple self-interest. Half the nation now receives U.S. government benefits -- in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, student loans, rent subsidies, school lunches and Earned Income Tax Credits, etc.

Folks who rely on government benefits are unlikely to rally to a party that promises to cut government. And as half the nation pays no income tax, these folks are unlikely to be thrilled about tax cuts.

Bernie Sanders, who promises free college tuition and making Wall Street and the 1 percent pay for it, knows his party. While these realities of national politics would seem to point to inexorable Democratic dominance in coming decades, there are worms in the apple.

First, there is the strangely shrunken and still shrinking Democratic leadership base. As the Daily Caller reports, under Obama, Democrats have lost a net of more than 900 state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 U.S. House and 13 Senate seats. Such numbers suggest a sick party. Republican strength on Capitol Hill is again as great as it was in the last years of the Roaring '20s.

Second, due to Trump, viewership of the Republican debates has been astronomical -- 24 million for one, 23 million for another.

The turnout at Trump rallies has been unlike anything seen in presidential primaries; and what's more, the GOP voter turnout in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada set new records for the party.

Yet voter turnout for the Clinton-Sanders race has fallen, in every contest, below what it was in the Clinton-Obama race in 2008. Bernie's millennials aside, the energy and excitement has been on the Republican contest, often a sign of party ascendancy.

Not only would Trump at the top of the GOP ticket assure a huge turnout (pro and con); he is the quintessence of the anti-Washington, anti-establishment candidate in a year when Americans appear to want a wholesale house-cleaning in the capital.

As a builder and job creator, Trump would surely have greater cross-party appeal to working-class Democrats than any traditional Republican politician. Moreover, when Bernie Sanders goes down to defeat, how much enthusiasm will his supporters, who thrilled to the savaging of Wall Street, bring to the Clinton campaign?

This is the year of the outsider, and Hillary is the prom queen of Goldman Sachs. She represents continuity. Trump represents change. Moreover, on the top Trump issues of immigration and trade, the elites have always been the furthest out of touch with the country.

In the 1990s, when Bill Clinton fought the NAFTA battle, the nation rebelled against the deal, but the establishment backed it. When Republicans on Capitol Hill voted for most-favored-nation status for China, year in and year out, did Republican grass roots demand this, or was it the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable?

On immigration, where are the polls that show Middle Americans enthusiastic about increasing the numbers coming? Where is the majority demanding amnesty or open borders? The elites of Europe are as out of touch as America's.

Angela Merkel, Time's Person of the Year in 2015, is at risk of being dumped in 2016 if she does not halt the next wave of Middle Eastern refugees who will be arriving on Europe's shores when the seas calm in the spring in the Aegean and the Mediterranean.

If we believe the immigration issue Trump has seized upon is explosive here, look to Europe. In the Balkans and Central Europe, even in Austria, the barriers are going up and the border guards appearing.

Mass migration from the Third World to the First World is not only radicalizing America. It could destroy the European Union. Anger over any more migrants entering the country is among the reasons British patriots now want out of the EU.

America is crossing into a new era. Trump seems to have caught the wave, while Clinton seems to belong to yesterday.

A note of caution: This establishment is not going quietly.

What Would Justice Scalia Want?

Antonin Scalia's Successor

2/17/2016 - Cal Thomas Townhall.com

Few people in modern history have fulfilled their oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" more than the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Scalia was so well respected that the Senate voted 98-0 in 1986 to confirm him. These days it would be difficult to get a unanimous vote in support of Mother's Day.

It doesn't take a fortune teller to predict the scenario that would present itself if the political dynamics were reversed and a Republican president were in the White House with a Democratic Senate majority. Democrats would be demanding no justice be confirmed until the next president takes office and they would make it a major campaign issue. That is what Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said in 2007: "We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court, except in extraordinary circumstances." That was 19 months before the 2008 election. It is a little more than eight months away from the next election.

The president is not about to nominate a conservative and should not be expected to. Will he pick someone who is a closet liberal, daring the Senate to reject that person, or will he choose an openly liberal person and challenge the Senate to block his nominee?

If ever there was a time for Senate Republicans to stand firm, this is it. Initial signs are good. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) issued a statement that the next justice should not be confirmed until after a new president takes office. Senate Judiciary Committee ChairmanCharles Grassley (R-IA) said much the same.

Some are speculating that President Obama, who quickly announced he will name a successor to Scalia "in due time," might try to make a recess appointment after the current Senate session expires January 3, 2017, should the Senate refuse to confirm his nominee. How long would such a justice serve, and who would decide? When President Eisenhower appointed William Brennan to the court during a congressional recess, Brennan stayed for nearly 34 years.

For the Left, this is an opportunity to impose a liberal agenda on the nation for perhaps as many as 40 years. For the Right, it will determine whether conservatives will have the power to stop an agenda they believe is proving ruinous to the country -- economically, legally and morally. The stakes could not be higher.

Justice Scalia summarized his constitutional philosophy in a May 2011 interview with California Lawyer magazine:

"Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey, we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don't like the death penalty anymore, that's fine. You want a right to abortion? There's nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn't mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society."

It will be difficult for a Republican president to find someone as good as Scalia. If President Obama puts another liberal on the court, tipping its balance, that person is likely to undo all that Scalia has done to honor the Constitution.

The Senate should push the hold button and let the presidential candidates take it to the people to decide in November. Justice Scalia would have approved of such an approach.

Was James Madison Right?

How Republics Perish

2/12/2016 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com

If you believed America's longest war, in Afghanistan, was coming to an end, be advised: It is not.

Departing U.S. commander Gen. John Campbell says there will need to be U.S. boots on the ground "for years to come." Making good on President Obama's commitment to remove all U.S. forces by next January, said Campbell, "would put the whole mission at risk."

"Afghanistan has not achieved an enduring level of security and stability that justifies a reduction of our support. ... 2016 could be no better and possibly worse than 2015."

Translation: A U.S. withdrawal would risk a Taliban takeover with Kabul becoming the new Saigon and our Afghan friends massacred.

Fifteen years in, and we are stuck.

Nor is America about to end the next longest war in its history: Iraq. Defense Secretary Ash Carter plans to send units of the 101st Airborne back to Iraq to join the 4,000 Americans now fighting there,

"ISIS is a cancer," says Carter. After we cut out the "parent tumor" in Mosul and Raqqa, we will go after the smaller tumors across the Islamic world.

When can Mosul be retaken? "Certainly not this year," says the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart.

Vladimir Putin's plunge into the Syrian civil war with air power appears to have turned the tide in favor of Bashar Assad.

The "moderate" rebels are being driven out of Aleppo and tens of thousands of refugees are streaming toward the Turkish border.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to be enraged with the U.S. for collaborating with Syrian Kurds against ISIS and with Obama's failure to follow through on his dictate -- "Assad must go!"

There is thus no end in sight to the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, nor to the U.S.-backed Saudi war in Yemen, where ISIS and al-Qaida have re-arisen in the chaos.

Indeed, the West is mulling over military intervention in Libya to crush ISIS there and halt the refugee flood into Europe.

Yet, despite America's being tied down in wars from the Maghreb to Afghanistan, not one of these wars were among the three greatest threats identified last summer by Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

"Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security" said Dunford, "If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I would have to point to Russia ... if you look at their behavior, it's nothing short of alarming."

Dunford agreed with John McCain that we ought to provide anti-tank weapons and artillery to Ukraine, for, without it, "they're not going to be able to protect themselves against Russian aggression."

But what would we do if Putin responded by sending Russian troops to occupy Mariupol and build a land bridge to Crimea? Send U.S. troops to retake Mariupol? Are we really ready to fight Russia?

The new forces NATO is moving into the Baltic suggests we are.

Undeniably, disputes have arisen between Russia, and Ukraine and Georgia which seceded in 1991, over territory. But, also undeniably, many Russians in the 14 nations that seceded, including the Baltic states, never wanted to leave and wish to rejoin Mother Russia.

How do these tribal and territorial conflicts in the far east of Europe so threaten us that U.S. generals are declaring that "Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security"?

Asked to name other threats to the United States, Gen. Dunford listed them in this order: China, North Korea, ISIS.

But while Beijing is involved in disputes with Hanoi over the Paracels, with the Philippines over the Spratlys, with Japan over the Senkakus -- almost all of these being uninhabited rocks and reefs -- how does China threaten the United States?

America is creeping ever closer to war with the other two great nuclear powers because we have made their quarrels our quarrels, though at issue are tracts and bits of land of no vital interest to us.

North Korea, which just tested another atomic device and long-range missile, is indeed a threat to us.

But why are U.S. forces still up the DMZ, 62 years after the Korean War? Is South Korea, with an economy 40 times that of the North and twice the population, incapable of defending itself?

Apparently slipping in the rankings as a threat to the United States is that runaway favorite of recent years, Iran.

Last fall, though, Sen. Ted Cruz reassured us that "the single biggest national security threat facing America right now is the threat of a nuclear Iran."

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded," wrote James Madison, "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

Perhaps Madison was wrong.

Otherwise, with no end to war on America's horizon, the prospect of this free republic enduring is, well, doubtful.

Rules of Engagement = Disasterous Outcome

Lions Led by Donkeys

by David French, Nationalreview.com November 16, 2015

In 14 years of continual combat, has there ever been a greater disconnect between our warrior class and the civilians who purport to lead them? American politicians still don’t understand our enemy, still don’t understand the capabilities and limitations of the American military, and worst of all, they still seem unwilling to learn.

They come from an intellectual aristocracy that believes itself educated simply because it’s credentialed and they tend to listen only to those who share similar credentials. They've built a bubble of impenetrable ignorance, and they govern accordingly.

During World War I, German general Max Hoffman reportedly declared that English soldiers "fight like lions, but we know they are lions led by donkeys."  Over time, his criticism stuck, and popular opinion about the war hardened into a consensus that the horrors of the trenches were the product of stupidity and lack of imagination. Callous generals, the criticism held, safely ensconced themselves in the rear while sending young men to die in futile charges, unable to conceive of the tactical and strategic changes necessary to deal with the technological revolutions that defined the war. This criticism was unfair then, as generals on all sides suffered high casualty rates and dramatically changed tactics during the course of World War I, but it’s entirely fair now.

Just look at the collection of senior talent advising President Obama on ISIS. Stanford and Oxford-educated National Security Adviser Susan Rice has no military experience, was part of the team that disastrously botched America’s response to the Rwandan genocide, and is notable mainly for a willingness to say anything to advance the electoral prospects of her political bosses. Stanford and Michigan educated and leftist Valerie Jarrett, by many accounts, President Obama’s most-trusted adviser She also has no military experience, spent much of her life toiling in Chicago municipal politics, and has gained influence primarily through her steadfast loyalty to the Obamas.

Yes, Yale educated John Kerry served in Vietnam, but one of his first acts upon returning home was to turn on his fellow veterans and slander them as war criminals. He has minimal credibility in the military. Perhaps worst of all is Smith College­ educated Wendy Sherman, the lead negotiator of the administration’s disastrous Iran deal. She has zero military experience, started her career as a social worker, and then made her name in radical pro-abortion politics as the director of EMILY’s List. Sherman played an instrumental role in the failed North Korean nuclear negotiations during the Clinton administration, so naturally Obama put her in charge of the Iranian debacle. Incredibly, this gang of cocooned leftists has reportedly aced the Pentagon out of the decision-making process and pushed military frustration to the highest level in decades.

But the politicized Pentagon bears its own share of the blame, beginning with a politically correct culture where discrimination complaints are more harmful to careers than battlefield failures. Yale and Oxford educated Ash Carter is no doubt intelligent (he has a Ph.D.in theoretical physics) and may be an upgrade over Chuck Hagel, but he has exactly as much experience in uniform as the commander-in-chief.

On his watch, the Pentagon has maintained rules of engagement that have so dramatically hampered American forces in the field that terrorists routinely and easily find safe haven from the world’s most capable military.

And while military experience, even experience on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan, is no guarantee of either wisdom or policy agreement (after all, even the most hardened post-9/11 veterans can and do disagree on tactics and strategy), there is a reason why Senator Tom Cotton stood alone in voting against the disastrous Corker bill. He has seen jihad up close, and he knows that it cannot be appeased.

Republicans, while possessing a bit more clarity regarding the nature of our enemy, suffer from similar defects in experience. Not one of the leading GOP contenders has served one day in the military, and this experience deficit could be one reason that they sometimes substitute the foolish pacifism and appeasement of the Left for foolish saber-rattling. The Republican candidates, near-lock-step support for a Syrian no-fly zone (with the notable exceptions of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump) reflects the worst sort of strategic thinking.

Chris Christie’s vow to shoot down Russian planes if they violate such a no-fly zone was an embarrassment.

I do not believe that military service is a prerequisite for the presidency, but lack of service, especially lack of service since 9/11 should lead to a degree of humility and openness to counsel that our political aristocracy self-evidently doesn’t possess.

I know their world. I’ve lived in their world. This is a political class that reflexively distrusts the military, believes the right kind of experience can be gained by attending panel discussions from Boston to Geneva to Istanbul, and claims to gain on-the-ground insight from quick, guided tours of the safest sectors of Iraq and Afghanistan.

They know nothing. Worse, they learn nothing. The American people deserve better. This is a nation that has supplied an all-volunteer military with elite warriors for 14 consecutive years of combat. This is a nation whose sons and daughters keep exhibiting  the courage of the Greatest Generation and the generations of soldiers who came before.

We still raise lions. But alas, the donkeys rule!

Multiculturalism & Diversity = National Chaos

The Failure of Multiculturalism

2/4/2016 - Cal Thomas

Just as radar warns of approaching storms, so does the flood of migrants entering Europe warn us of a deluge yet to come, not only for Europeans, if they continue to allow unrestricted immigration, but for the United States.

Reports that women in Cologne, Germany, have been groped and robbed by men described by authorities as having "a North African or Arabic" appearance should be warning enough, but there are other and more ominous warnings that suggest worse lies ahead, unless the problem receives immediate attention and action. And it's not just Cologne.

The Gatestone Institute, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit international policy council and think tank, is in possession of what it describes as a "leaked German intelligence document," which says, "We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law."

Last October, reports Gatestone, Andrew Parker, the director general of Britain's Security Service, said that "'the scale and tempo' of the danger to the UK is now at a level he has not seen in his 32-year career. British police are monitoring over 3,000 homegrown Islamist extremists willing to carry out attacks on the UK."

On Wednesday, President Obama visited a Baltimore mosque. According to The Daily Caller, the mosque "has deep ties to extremist elements, including the Muslim Brotherhood." That mosque is not alone, as a map on the paper's website reveals.

Explaining the president's visit, White House spokesman Keith Maley said, "The president believes that one of our nation's greatest strengths is our rich diversity."

I doubt terrorists believe that. I don't believe that diversity, as practiced in America, exists in any country with a Muslim majority.

Benedicte Bjornland, head of the Norwegian Police Security Service, recently warned against further Muslim immigration. When U.S. politicians suggest a similar approach, they are denounced as "bigots" and "Islamophobes," but in Norway and Sweden, two of the most liberal nations in Europe that have welcomed Muslim immigrants, that charge will be difficult to make stick.

What we are witnessing is the complete breakdown and failure of multiculturalism. Dictionary.com defines multiculturalism as "the preservation of different cultures or cultural identities within a unified society, as a state or nation."

That definition contains a glaring contradiction. A society cannot be unified if it preserves different cultures and cultural identities within itself. That's why our national motto is translated "out of many, one." To the multiculturalist it appears to be, "Out of one, many."

History demonstrates that no nation can long survive if it forgets why it exists. Our failure to inculcate American traditions, beliefs and history, even in the native born, not to mention immigrants, is rapidly destroying the country bequeathed to us by our forebears.

Leftists in Europe and the U.S. have promoted multiculturalism, believing that once Muslims experience our freedoms and dedication to equality they will want to be like us. It doesn't appear to be working and anyone familiar with the Koran and its "kingdom of this world" instructions knows it likely won't.

European leaders, from Germany's Angela Merkel, to Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, have deliberately closed their eyes to what they see unfolding in their countries, and in others.

President Obama is doing the same thing with his trip to the Baltimore mosque. Our enemies see our weakness and failure to understand their objectives, which include destroying the West and establishing a worldwide caliphate. This is not top secret information. Not all Muslims are terrorists, to be sure, but large numbers of radical Islamists profess allegiance to the faith and they are more than willing to wreak havoc in pursuit of their goals.

An ancient proverb reminds us: "There are none so blind as those who will not see."

 

Welcome to the Land of Lawlessness

Republican Debate Shows Where Comprehensive Immigration Is Headed: Nowhere

2/2/2016 - Michael Barone Townhall.com

Donald Trump was absent from Fox News' Republican debate Thursday night, presiding at his own event seven minutes' drive away featuring cameo appearances by the two previous Iowa Republican caucus winners exiled now to the undercard debate, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. But the issue Trump raised to high-decibel level at his announcement last June was front and center at the main event: immigration.

It was raised midway through the debate by the moderator Trump cited as the reason for his non-participation, Megyn Kelly. She ran videotape montages of previous comments on the issue by Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and asked them to explain the discrepancies between what they said then and their positions now. She could have played a similar montage for Trump if he had shown up.

Marco Rubio had the toughest task, to explain why he co-sponsored the 2013 Gang of Eight bill with a path for citizenship for illegal aliens. Rubio said the bill did not provide the "blanket amnesty" he campaigned against in 2010 and which he said was part of the 2007 bill that failed in the Democratic-majority Senate.

With characteristic deftness Rubio segued into his current position: complete the southern border fence, mandatory E-Verify and visa tracking and no legalization or citizenship for illegals until "we can prove to the people of this country that illegal immigration is under control."

Kelly gave Jeb Bush a chance to point out that Rubio had changed his position --"cut and run" -- from the Gang of Eight bill, which he said he supported at Rubio's request.

Next came Ted Cruz's turn, with Kelly's video showing Cruz arguing for his amendment to Gang of Eight that would provide legalization but not citizenship for illegals. Cruz argued then that this would make the bill more passable; he argues now that it was intended as a poison pill, to break up the bipartisan coalition in support.

In reply Cruz called for more border guards, ending sanctuary cities and welfare for illegals. He pointed out that this amendment was supported by leading Gang of Eight opponent Sen. Jeff Sessions and western Iowa Congressman Steve King.

Kelly then called on Rand Paul, now back in a prime-time debate, who said that Cruz wanted to pass a bill with legalization. "He can't have it both ways," Paul said, and argued that Cruz had "an authenticity problem" by suggesting that "everybody's for amnesty except Ted Cruz."

It's undeniable that both Rubio and Cruz have changed their positions since 2013. For immigration restrictionists, such as best-selling author Ann Coulter and maverick Democratic blogger Mickey Kaus, that's disqualifying. Once past the election, they argue, these guys will flip back and with the cooperation of House Speaker Paul Ryan will shove through a path to legalization that will incentivize further illegal immigration.

Presumably, they believe that Donald Trump, who also supported forms of legalization, wouldn't because he has become so identified with the issue.

But the effective reality, as National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru has argued, is that immigration has become a Republican litmus test issue. Rubio's and Cruz's deft maneuvering off their previous positions proves that. And Rubio is persuasive in arguing that a bill with legalization can't be passed until the American people -- i.e., Republican voters -- are convinced that enforcement has been made effective.

My sense is that a President Rubio or President Cruz would be as bound by their current positions as a President Trump. The demand for legalization has diminished -- polls show Hispanics not much concerned -- and Democrats will balk at legalization and insist on citizenship (for what they believe will be many new Democratic voters).

Paul Ryan is not likely to spend the huge amount of political capital required to pass a bill supported mainly by Democrats and opposed by a large majority of House Republicans.

Donald Trump's candidacy, however it turns out, has changed the immigration calculus for Republican politicians. Some Republicans fear that Hispanics would make Arizona, Texas and Florida as solidly Democratic as California, but these fears are unfounded.

Arizona and Texas remain safely Republican and Florida still securely marginal, and each is getting more newcomers from other states than from immigration. And California would be safely Democratic if not a single Hispanic voted.

Meanwhile, the threat of terrorism strengthens the argument for effective border and internal enforcement, which if possible would tend to reduce the illegal population. The opening for "comprehensive" immigration legislation seems to have closed.

Donald Trump was absent from Fox News' Republican debate Thursday night, presiding at his own event seven minutes' drive away featuring cameo appearances by the two previous Iowa Republican caucus winners exiled now to the undercard debate, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. But the issue Trump raised to high-decibel level at his announcement last June was front and center at the main event: immigration.

It was raised midway through the debate by the moderator Trump cited as the reason for his non-participation, Megyn Kelly. She ran videotape montages of previous comments on the issue by 

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and asked them to explain the discrepancies between what they said then and their positions now. She could have played a similar montage for Trump if he had shown up.

Marco Rubio had the toughest task, to explain why he co-sponsored the 2013 Gang of Eight bill with a path for citizenship for illegal aliens. Rubio said the bill did not provide the "blanket amnesty" he campaigned against in 2010 and which he said was part of the 2007 bill that failed in the Democratic-majority Senate.

With characteristic deftness Rubio segued into his current position: complete the southern border fence, mandatory E-Verify and visa tracking and no legalization or citizenship for illegals until "we can prove to the people of this country that illegal immigration is under control."

Kelly gave Jeb Bush a chance to point out that Rubio had changed his position --"cut and run" -- from the Gang of Eight bill, which he said he supported at Rubio's request.

Next came Ted Cruz's turn, with Kelly's video showing Cruz arguing for his amendment to Gang of Eight that would provide legalization but not citizenship for illegals. Cruz argued then that this would make the bill more passable; he argues now that it was intended as a poison pill, to break up the bipartisan coalition in support.

In reply Cruz called for more border guards, ending sanctuary cities and welfare for illegals. He pointed out that this amendment was supported by leading Gang of Eight opponent Sen. Jeff Sessions and western Iowa Congressman Steve King.

Kelly then called on Rand Paul, now back in a prime-time debate, who said that Cruz wanted to pass a bill with legalization. "He can't have it both ways," Paul said, and argued that Cruz had "an authenticity problem" by suggesting that "everybody's for amnesty except Ted Cruz."

It's undeniable that both Rubio and Cruz have changed their positions since 2013. For immigration restrictionists, such as best-selling author Ann Coulter and maverick Democratic blogger Mickey Kaus, that's disqualifying. Once past the election, they argue, these guys will flip back and with the cooperation of House Speaker Paul Ryan will shove through a path to legalization that will incentivize further illegal immigration.

Presumably, they believe that Donald Trump, who also supported forms of legalization, wouldn't because he has become so identified with the issue.

But the effective reality, as National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru has argued, is that immigration has become a Republican litmus test issue. Rubio's and Cruz's deft maneuvering off their previous positions proves that. And Rubio is persuasive in arguing that a bill with legalization can't be passed until the American people -- i.e., Republican voters -- are convinced that enforcement has been made effective.

My sense is that a President Rubio or President Cruz would be as bound by their current positions as a President Trump. The demand for legalization has diminished -- polls show Hispanics not much concerned -- and Democrats will balk at legalization and insist on citizenship (for what they believe will be many new Democratic voters).

Paul Ryan is not likely to spend the huge amount of political capital required to pass a bill supported mainly by Democrats and opposed by a large majority of House Republicans.

Donald Trump's candidacy, however it turns out, has changed the immigration calculus for Republican politicians. Some Republicans fear that Hispanics would make Arizona, Texas and Florida as solidly Democratic as California, but these fears are unfounded.

Arizona and Texas remain safely Republican and Florida still securely marginal, and each is getting more newcomers from other states than from immigration. And California would be safely Democratic if not a single Hispanic voted.

Meanwhile, the threat of terrorism strengthens the argument for effective border and internal enforcement, which if possible would tend to reduce the illegal population. The opening for "comprehensive" immigration legislation seems to have closed.