Zombiecons

Bob Novak seems to have cribbed this quote by supply-sider Larry Hunter from Bruce Bartlett's New Republic article about "Obamacons":

"The Republican Party is a dead rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders stumbling around like zombies in a horror version of 'Weekend With Bernie,' handcuffed to a corpse."

Novak attributes the quote to Hunter's blog, although I can't find the original post. At any rate, attribution issues aside, the quote is picked up by Steven Greenhut of the Orange County Register, who writes:

Four or eight years of a President Obama with a Democratic Congress ought to give Republicans some time to build an agenda around these time-tested ideas. Complete Democratic control is a troubling prospect, but it might be the quickest way to turn a rotting corpse into a living organism.

This "worse-is-better" argument is very much like that of the radicals of '68 who were so determined to stop Hubert Humphrey and defeat the Democratic Party's Old Guard that they ended up, in effect, electing Richard Nixon.

I agree wholeheartedly with Greenhut that the GOP leadership is clueless and obsolete, and seems not to have learned its lesson in '06, but then again, neither has Greenhut, who remains firmly in the grips of open-borders mania:

"Yes, we can slow illegal immigration though some sound policies, but we won't be overly punitive in doing so. The big problem isn't that there are too many immigrants, but too few Americans. We're committed to creating opportunities for assimilation and reducing the costs associated with immigration by reducing the size of the welfare state. Our policies will welcome people and remove barriers to their independence and success. Isn't that better than building a wall?"

That's what passes for conservatism in California, where the GOP is permanently stuck in the Pete Wilson era, desperately frightened that opposition to illegal immigration might cost the Republican Party votes among Hispanics. That attitude was, and remains, rooted in fundamental misconceptions about the nature of the electorate and the alleged "backlash" against Prop 187. California GOP leaders -- who've made the mistake of internalizing the liberal MSM narrative -- believe that, prior to Prop 187 in 1994, Chicanos were all Reaganite supply-side fanatics, and only then aligned with the Democrats because of Republican "intolerance."

Greenhut (and similarly-minded Republican 'fraidy cats) don't seem to understand that the illegal immigration issue is about crime. The illegal invasion is an expression of a criminal mentality among the invaders. Tolerance for lawbreaking does not inspire affection, but rather contempt, in the minds of criminals. California Republicans like Greenhut won't tolerate smokers in a restaurant, but they're willing to tolerate criminals whose very presence in the United States is a violation of federal law.

Greenhut's "reform" agenda is one-way ticket to GOP oblivion.

UPDATE: Noting the Zombiecon nominee's recent panderfest in Mexico, Michelle Malkin asks:

Whose idea was it to send John McCain down to Mexico the day before Independence Day and have him grovel for Latino votes south of the border by visiting the Basilica de Guadalupe–a famed Catholic shrine featuring the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which most Mexican politicians consider off-limits for campaigning?

When your "Latino outreach director" is all about unpatriotic pandering to lawbreakers, you are a dead man walking.