The Senate is 'Comfortably Numb'<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
There was an animal in history call the "Reagan Democrat". Opinionated but rare, he made his appearance in the ecosystem for a season, motivated by the personality of Irish hard work and sunny optimism, his participation in public life was driven as much by a staunch anti-discrimination as it was by hardy individualism.  Like the marsupial caught shy in a headlight's blaze, the Reagan Democrat has been previously concealed in the landscape, a devoted worker, ready only to emerge when conditions favor him with the offer good food and safe hunting.  Is there anything in the great outdoors today that would provoke him?
An interesting dynamic stands out and is exemplified in this story about a Mayor of the otherwise harmless <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Hazleton, PA.  Not normally one for making barn burners on the national stage, Hazleton has had the nerve to insist that people who help others systematically break federal law should face obstacles to publicly institutionalizing criminality.  Passing laws which fine employers and landlords for contracting with illegal aliens, Hazleton has created a furor. 
But it has belted political correctness in the face; a mayoral candidate has received both the Republican and Democratic nominations.
Imagine that.  An issue of such transcendence and ferocity that it commands the leadership of both parties?  The candidate in question not only helped to craft the city ordinance barring the illegals, but also shepherded it through its legal defense.  But the obdurate media and the decapitated beltway-land have no awareness of the base:
Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?
It is as though the entire structure from which real human beings, and the political parties who allegedly represent them, draw meaning have been stolen over night.  Words and ideas have been rewritten to mean anything but "actually control immigration."  The hard-working every man in America is incensed with his dollars, his services, his opportunities, his safety, his sovereignty, and his cultural identity being arbitrarily handed out to...whoever...and the average American is vomitously sick of it.  But the parties then pass this space-case bill in the Senate rewarding illegals with citizenship, special worker cards, and probably Hillary-care.  Confused that they are not praised and adored, the blundering Senate hovers over the nation and tries: 
Relax!
I need some information first!
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?
But it's too late for that.  The whole country is in all out, Boston tea party rebellion against the self-appointed savants that allegedly wield a power to fix the problem.  Disgust for Bush's Chertoff is as much as for Teddy Kennedy; these people congratulate themselves as though the main stream media represented America; beltway-disease panderers to the wrong people.  The base signals again and again.  The Senate hears nada:
There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're sayin...*
But while the establishment media, pregnant with preconceptions, and the
self- satisfied parties, flush with media kool-aide, are arcing ever hellward in their quest for mouthing the most approved-of things, the base is about its own business, perusing the thoroughbreds with its own eye.  Is there any Presidential candidate in the field who could find this latent fury, this artery of lava?
Reports indicate that Michael Bloomberg plans a billion dollar adventure, with this own money, to out-gun the Giuliani political center.  To continue in English, he intends to be a pro-abort who wants to cut taxes.  He is convinced, as is the Republican establishment, as is the Democratic establishment, that liberalism plus money is roughly what one needs to preach in order to conquer all.  That is because he thinks the east coast is really god; the mistake that most left-worshippers make.
But a Bloomberg candidacy will destroy any liberal Republican nominee.  Why vote for Giuliani if you are a fiscal Republican?  If Bloomberg spends a billion to represent the same hackneyed mantras, he would take votes away from a liberal Republican faster than from a liberal Democrat.  True conservatives would stay home in droves and Hillary would easily win if a Giuliani-Republican faced a Bloomberg-third-party.  That scenario would leave three hackneyed and empty suits frantically pawing for a diminishing slice of the "vital center" - plus all the far left voting for a feminist in chief.
But what about Tancredo?
Imagine a Christian conservative Republican nominee who could keep Pro-Life voters at the polls and who rallied every anti-illegal-immigration vote in the country?  Because, if we are speaking of cross-over appeal, what was it precisely, about Reagan, that created a Reagan Democrat?  Character, decency, optimism on America, the universal appeal of an America-first and strong economy, and the persistent everyman story of having fought to a high position from humble beginings?  And if we add to all that a solution for the powder keg of illegal immigration, what do you have for this presidential cycle?  Indeed, sources close to Tancredo indicate he's been receiving vote-pledges from traditionally far-left constituencies, all because of the Congressman's commitment to uphold our laws.
There is a big, big bang for the candidate out there who owns, who drills into, that high-pressure, underground lava of illegal immigration and lets a real solution geyser accross the landscape.  If he also carries with him the honesty and the sunny Americanism of the Gipper, such a man could steam roll every other pretender to the throne.
Tancredo will stick to his guns.
Bloomberg may stick to the money.
Hillary's stuck in a plattitude.
And Laredo isn't so funny.
The first real balloting in this election ought to be very, very interesting.