The issue that ends up rendering asunder the American right will not be Iraq but the other i-word, immigration. George W. Bush and Karl Rove have long believed that the future of the Republican Party depends on appealing to Hispanics, the fastest growing minority group in the US. They argue that with their strong family values, work ethic and small business mind-set this group are just waiting for the Republicans to court them. Indeed, Bush and Rove received some vindication for this theory when a sharp increase in the Hispanic vote helped win Bush a second term.
But, so the argument goes, if the Republicans are to win the loyalty of Hispanics for more than one election they need to deliver “comprehensive immigration reform”, which translates as something that regularises the status of the 10 to 12 million—mostly Hispanic—illegal immigrants in the US.
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