Six months before the election, and some 20 percent of Republican voters say they are not necessarily committed to voting for George W. Bush. Welcome to the club, but meanwhile, Republicans are doing everything they can think of to insure their maximum leader goes the way of his dad and Bob Dole, among other recent losers. They are accomplishing this by stabbing immigration control activists in the back.

Not only did the president himself unveil a lame brained amnesty plan for illegal aliens last January, but more recently the GOP establishment in California and Arizona has tried to scuttle immigration control measures on the state ballots this year.

In California, where veterans of the movement to pass Proposition 187 in 1994 have tried to put a revised version before the state's voters, the Republican leadership effectively strangled the proposal in its cradle. This is not too different from what happened before.

In 1994, Prop 187 forbade public benefits being paid to illegal aliens. The Hispanic lobbies, the Open Borders crowd and the neoconservatives were outraged, and neocon point men William Bennett and Jack Kemp denounced the measure only days before the vote. The voters ignored them, passing Prop 187 by a landslide 60 percent or more. A federal judge later struck it down, killing what the neocons couldn't kill by themselves.

Prop 187 not only passed overwhelmingly but also pulled Republican Gov. Pete Wilson from a yawning political grave and put at least five new Republican congressmen into the House, the year the GOP won Congress.

Today, the Stupid Party still hasn't learned the lesson.

For the last year or so, grassroots supporters of 187 have tried to put a similar measure on the ballot. They failed, unable to gain the nearly 600,000 signatures by the deadline last month.

Why did they fail? Ron Prince, leader of the original Prop 187 movement, knows why.

"The Republican Party in California was vocal in its opposition and not supportive," Mr. Prince told the Washington Times recently. "Behind the scenes, it was pressuring people not to support this."

What Mr. Kemp and the Virtue Czar couldn't accomplish and the federal courts couldn't stop, the Stupid Party did all by itself. [State ballot measures on illegals founder, By Valerie Richardson, Washington Times, May 16, 2004]

The Times also reports the party is doing the same thing in Arizona, where a similar measure is enjoying more success in gaining support, but not because of the Republicans: "The state's Republican congressional delegation opposes the initiative, but delegates to the Arizona Republican Convention bucked the leadership in February to endorse the measure."

But if the party leadership from the White House to the state capitols is determined to commit suicide, there remain some rising Republicans who won't let it happen.

"Immigration is turning into an election battleground among Republicans," the Times reported last week in another story, "with several challengers running primary campaigns against leading congressional supporters of legalizing illegal aliens." [GOP incumbents face challenges on immigration By Stephen Dinan The Washington Times, May 19, 2004]

In Utah, incumbent Rep. Chris Cannon is facing a tough battle for survival from immigration control advocate Matt Throckmorton, who opposes the legalization of illegals that Mr. Cannon supports. "It's the biggest issue in the race," Mr. Throckmorton says of the immigration issue. Mr. Cannon failed to win more than 60 percent of the vote in a party nominating convention recently, undoubtedly as a result of his flaccid position on amnesty.

It's also a big issue on other states. In Arizona, Rep. Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake, both amnesty peddlers, face strong opposition from anti-amnesty (it should be called pro-law enforcement) challengers Randy Graf and Stan Barnes.

Both incumbents have sponsored a guest worker bill that amounts to little more than mass amnesty for the illegals who have been terrorizing Arizona ranchers and border residents for years. The GOP incumbents are on the side of the illegals.

In North Carolina black conservative Vernon Robinson is running against illegal immigration in an open-seat primary, and in Kansas immigration is an issue in the Third District congressional race.

What all this proves beyond any question is that, even today, with books, government reports, and repeated public opinion polls for years showing both the costs of mass immigration and the strong popular support for reducing and controlling it, the Republican Party leadership is living on the thither rings of Saturn.

Even with the obvious example of the first Prop 187 helping to give it a congressional majority, it still doesn't get it.

There's only one word for a party like this—stupid.

Actually, there's another word. The real reason the Stupid Party leadership doesn't get it on immigration is that its masters in Big Business and the Open Borders lobby call the shots inside the party, and so do those who imagine they can win election by pandering to the Hispanic vote.

The word for that is a lot worse than stupid.

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[Sam Francis [email him] is a nationally syndicated columnist. A selection of his columns, America Extinguished: Mass Immigration And The Disintegration Of American Culture, is now available from Americans For Immigration Control. Click here for Sam Francis' website. Click here to orderhis monograph, Ethnopolitics: Immigration, Race, and the American Political Future and here for Glynn Custred's review.]