Donations to the GOP may well not be down, but the rank and file remains really, really PO’ed over the president’s immigration policies. Several kids working in the RNC’s phone banks calling existing donors tell me that the number-one gripe they hear from donors — by far, day after day — is immigration. The RNC has even prepared a helpful script, telling the phone workers to blame the “liberal media” for obscuring the president’s genuine opposition to illegal immigration. The media? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! That isn’t spin — that’s lying because you have nothing else to say. The contempt the Republican establishment feels for ordinary party supporters on this issue reminds me of the unguarded comment by some radio host after finishing a kids’ show: “That ought to keep the little bastards for a while.”

An important role for a conservative party is to constructively articulate and channel public anger over policies imposed on them by the elite — like busing, affirmative action, abortion on demand, etc. Part of the reason for the vitriol of John Pod’s correspondents may well be that on immigration, the national organs of the GOP are part of the problem.