The GOP base is hot on immigration issue: biggest gainers are McCain, Brewer and other RINOs who usually bob and weave

The immigration issue, which immigration enthusiasts have fought desperately to keep bipartisan (and thus out of the reach of American voters), is finally precipitating out on party lines.

It’s not that Republican elected officials want to take a strong stand on illegal immigration, legal immigration or anything else for that matter. McConnell and Boehner, quoted above, are the single most important reason not one congressional Republican can be found to introduce a “Time Out” or moratorium bill in the teeth of record unemployment—even though they have no other ideas to reduce unemployment, and even though Senator Harry Reid (of all people) introduced one during the much less serious recession of the early 1990s.

Indeed, Senator John McCain’s response to the Obama attack on Arizona goes some way to answering the interesting question of where he will stand on immigration if he succeeds in convincing Arizonans that he really is a born-again border enforcer and staving off J.D. Hayworth’s primary challenge.

McCain (and the hapless junior GOP Senator, John Kyl) said in a statement: “It is far too premature for the Obama Administration to challenge the legality of this new law since it has not yet been enforced.” [Republicans Slam Obama for Suing Arizona, by Connie Hair, Human Events, 07/06/2010]

This, of course, implies that there will be a time when a challenge is not premature—like, for example, after John McCain’s re-election.

There is only one reason Republicans are now making these brave statements: they are being forced to do so by their base. This is the only reason Arizona’s RINO governor Jan Brewer signed SB1070 in the first place—and she has been rewarded by soaring polls and probably re-election in a race that had looked very difficult indeed.