I think we finally have a hook to get immigration reform passed! Sarah Palin and Joe Lieberman have accidentally shown us the way forward with their very rational and well-informed responses to Wikileaks’ Cowardly Attack On The Very Foundations Of Our Civilization.

According to Gallup, since March, support for Democrats among whites and African-Americans has remained almost unchanged, but among Hispanics support for Congressional Democrats has been imploding. In March, Hispanics supported Democrats by a 33-point margin; that has dropped to only a 13-point margin today.

The Senate Republicans have made it clear since the beginning of 2009 they had no desire to reach bipartisan compromise with the Democrats. Instead they choose the surprisingly successful strategy pure obstructionism using a set of broken and arcane Senate rules. By effectively preventing the Democrats from governing (or preventing the Dems from governing effectively, take your pick), the Republicans have been able to tarnish their opponents in the eye’s of many voters, and therefore improve the GOP’s own election prospects.

Senator Grassley’s leak of an internal draft immigration policy memo from DHS is a right-wing political attack coming from anti-immigrant organizations and an anti-immigrant DHS employee, with the goal of stopping the DREAM Act in its tracks.

Clearly comprehensive immigration reform is not achievable in light of the refusal of either party to meaningfully address the subject, especially in an election year consumed with the rabid doings of the Arizona State Legislature (memo to everyone: the Arizona Legislature has always been the province of loony nutjobs). Against that backdrop, would be refreshing to see the Obama Administration actually thinking creatively about affirmative policy steps that could be taken to improve the situation and reduce racial tension. Believe it or not, that is exactly what is being done.

Expanding the power of the executive branch is terrible enough by itself. But redesigning the rules to make it easier to advance conservative goals while inhibiting progressive reform is an unbelievably disappointing request by a Democratic President.

If you are not in a position to arrange a boycott, call, fax and snail mail both of your Senators and your House Member and tell them to co-sponsor the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act.

Democrats are suffering from a dangerous enthusiasm gap. On the generic ballot, Democrats are currently tied with Republicans for the 2010 midterm election at 44 percent each, according to the new NBC/WSJ poll. That’s bad news for Democrats, given that they are holding several Republican-leaning seats and suffer a built-in disadvantage based on the layout of Congressional districts.

Has anyone ever been less supportive of their own legislation than Lindsey Graham? First he withdrew his support for the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman climate bill because Democrats wanted to move on immigration reform first (and really, what better way is there to protest that your bill is getting short shrift than to sabotage it?), and now he’s come up with an even better reason to oppose it:

I think Senator Lindsey Graham can rest easy, because the President telegraphed that there would be no movement on immigration this year. I’m sure Latino voters will understand.