What a difference a day makes

As we continue to read about what led to last night's results, we constantly hear explanations framed around Iraq, the economy, and the need for change. Yet we can't forget to include, as Simon notes, one of the great examples of how the GOP lost its way: immigration reform.

In today's press conference, President Bush said that he thinks Congress has a better chance of passing comprehensive immigration reform, which he supports, with a Democratic Congress:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. On immigration, many Democrats had more positive things to say about your comprehensive proposal than many Republicans did. Do you think a Democratic Congress gives you a better shot at comprehensive immigration reform?

THE PRESIDENT: You know, I should have brought this up. I do. I think we have a good chance. Thank you. It's an important issue and I hope we can get something done on it. I meant to put that in my list of things that we need to get done.

As the Weekly Standard pointed out, "If Republicans don't grab this issue, Democrats will." Judging by his comments today, the President seems to acknowledge that the Republicans had an unrealistic, malicious view of the issue and dropped the ball. It's up to the Democrats to pick it up and deliver our plan for comprehensive reform for America.

(FYI, Latinos voted with the Democrats 69-30% according to these exit polls from CNN)

The President also noted that he sees minimum wage, another issue NDN has been involved with, as another issue he can find common ground on:

Q Mr. President, I'd like to ask you, Nancy Pelosi has been quite clear about her agenda for the first 100 hours. She mentions things like raising minimum wage, cutting interest rates on student loans, broadening stem cell research, and rolling back tax cuts. Which of those can you support, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: I knew you'd probably try to get me to start negotiating with myself. I haven't even visited with Congresswoman Pelosi yet. She's coming to the Oval Office later this week; I'm going to sit down and talk with her. I believe on a lot of issues we can find common ground. And there's a significant difference between common ground and abandoning principle. She's not going to abandon her principles and I'm not going to abandon mine. But I do believe we have an opportunity to find some common ground to move forward on.

In that very same interview you quoted, one of these three characters asked me about minimum wage. I said, there's an area where I believe we can make some -- find common ground. And as we do, I'll be, of course, making sure that our small businesses are -- there's compensation for the small businesses in the bill.