Blame Pedro

Back in 2005, when Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee fought against an "un-American" and "race-baiting" proposal to deny undocumented workers access to health care and other government services, he declared that the bill "inflames those who are racists and bigots and makes them think there's a real problem." Impugning the piety of the bill's state-senator sponsor — like the governor, a Baptist preacher — Huckabee quipped, "I drink a different kind of Jesus juice."

That was then. Today — with the nation bogged down in a disastrous war, oil prices at $100 a barrel, climate change cooking the planet and the economy veering into recession — the geniuses vying to lead the Republican Party have decided what's really wrong with America: Mexicans. Even the Rev. Huckabee is chugging the GOP's nativist Kool-Aid: In December, the same man who two years ago called on America to "be a place that opens its arms, opens its heart, opens its spirit to people who come because they want the best for their families" unveiled his "Secure America Plan," which would target 12 million of these good folks for mass deportation 120 days into his first term.

The immigrant-bashing had the desired effect, winning Huckabee the coveted endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, leader of the Minuteman Project border vigilantes. Gilchrist — who, in a nod toward moderation, clarified to Rolling Stone that his group does not believe that undocumented workers ought to be "mowed down with machine guns at the border" — has high praise for Huckabee's plan. "It appeared to me that I had written it myself," he says. "It was that strong."

Exploiting the spasm of xenophobia that has taken hold of the GOP base helped Huckabee win Iowa — where entrance polls found illegal immigration the primary issue among the party's voters. But top Republican strategists are petrified that pandering to a narrow band of nativists will ruin the GOP's future with the nation's fastest-growing bloc of voters. This November, Hispanic turnout is expected to jump by fifty percent over 2000, with more than 9 million Latinos predicted to cast ballots. "I have never seen an issue where the short-term interests of Republican presidential candidates in the primaries were more starkly at odds with the long-term interests of the party itself," Michael Gerson, former White House senior policy adviser, wrote recently.

Grover Norquist, a top ally of Karl Rove, believes that the "vicious" rhetoric by GOP candidates could prompt Hispanics to flee "in droves" to the Democrats. "Talking about a strong border is one thing," Norquist says. "It's when you get into enforcing the law — which means deport — that you lose people's votes. Oddly enough, people resent the idea that you might throw their mother out of the country."