President’s Tough Talk on Border Is an Effort to Mend GOP Fences

In their efforts to extend the Republican Party’s dominance beyond President Bush’s term in office, White House strategists have sought to woo Latinos -- the population’s fastest-growing segment and a group that generally favors looser immigration laws.

But Bush’s speech on immigration policy Monday night served as a concession that before the GOP can focus on the voters of the future, it must deal with the voters of the present: the conservatives who form the core of Bush’s political base.

The main goal of Bush’s address was to win back these voters by emphasizing his proposals to beef up border security. Although he echoed his long-held support for a “comprehensive” revamping of immigration laws, Bush admitted that the government “has not been in complete control of its borders.”

He devoted the bulk of his speech -- his first on a domestic policy issue delivered from the Oval Office -- to discuss using National Guard troops to help secure the border, erecting “high-tech fences” in certain areas and enacting other tough-sounding solutions.

The address was only one example Monday of the White House’s recognition that it must court conservatives with just six months to go before voters decide who will control Congress.

Just hours before Bush spoke, Karl Rove, his senior political advisor, made a rare public appearance to assure listeners at a conservative think tank that the administration was remaining true to their ideology -- despite sharp criticism from the right that Bush has allowed government spending to spiral out of control.

“They’re missing the facts,” Rove said of conservative critics during his appearance at the American Enterprise Institute. He argued that by issuing about 39 veto threats, Bush had been able to cut the growth of spending.

But that may be a tough case to make, with the federal budget having gone from a surplus when Bush took office to a deficit of $319 billion in the 2005 fiscal year.

And the immigration debate -- much like the surprise challenge to the president earlier this year over the deal to let a Dubai firm manage operations at some U.S. ports -- has some conservatives questioning whether Bush has lost touch with the base that once swooned over him.

One of Bush’s most impressive political feats in his 2004 reelection campaign was that he managed to maintain his strong support among conservatives and receive about 44% of the Latino vote -- a far better showing than usual for a Republican candidate. The dispute over rewriting immigration laws, however, clearly has disrupted that balancing act.

On Monday, for example, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh -- normally a loyal surrogate for the Republican cause -- used his show to all but ridicule the president’s approach to the issue.

Asserting that Bush was trying to appeal to Latinos at the expense of his political base, Limbaugh dismissed Bush’s plan to dispatch National Guard troops to the border with Mexico as mere “window dressing” that would have little effect on stemming illegal immigration.

“They’ll be down there for a few weeks. They’ll go home,” Limbaugh said, according to a transcript posted on his website. “The border will be open as usual.”

Richard A. Viguerie, a longtime conservative activist, issued a statement Monday denouncing Bush’s “liberal” immigration policies.

“When President Bush says to his supporters, ‘Trust me on immigration,’ he has exhausted his reservoir of good faith with conservatives,” Viguerie said. “Americans, especially conservatives, are beginning to tune the president out.”

This sour mood has created complications for GOP strategists as they try to build grass-roots support for the president’s immigration policy. While Republican National Committee officials on Monday night provided talking points for local and state party activists, they were still considering the right way to approach the talk radio hosts and bloggers who are typically part of delivering the party’s message but on this issue are proving to be obstacles to the White House.

An April poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that more than one in three self-described conservative Republicans disapproved of Bush’s handling of immigration. “This is one of his weakest issues with his base,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew center. “The Republicans need their core constituents. The Hispanic vote represents new branches on the tree, but the real, sturdy underpinning of this tree are the conservatives.”

The difficulty of persuading conservative House Republicans to go beyond backing the enforcement-only immigration legislation the chamber approved in December and embrace the broader approach pushed by Bush was summed up by Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.). Bush’s efforts to appease the Republican base with tough talk on border control was “too late,” Jones said.

“To me, this is like, ‘Well, look what I’m doing for you now, pass my bill,’ ” Jones said.

Monday night’s address marked Bush’s most high-profile effort to influence the immigration debate since he first unveiled the idea of a guest worker program in January 2004.

And even as he tried to mollify conservatives on Monday, he still touched on the themes that have typified his rhetoric since his days as governor of Texas -- speaking of the desire for a better life for their families that drives many illegal immigrants, and of their faith.

And Rove -- even in an address designed to highlight the president’s conservative credentials -- reflected on his experiences as a longtime Texas resident. He said he leases property in Kenedy County, on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I don’t care if you’re hunting deer in February or mowing the rows in the middle of the pasture in August, you’ll find someone carrying a plastic jug and a plastic bag in the middle of the cold winter or the very hot summer trying desperately to get north in order to earn money to put food on the table for their families,” Rove said.

“We’ve got to deal with that reality. On the other hand, we’ve got to deal with the reality that people die. I’ve seen a couple of corpses out there. I don’t want to see them again.”

With the 2006 midterm elections looming, Rove hinted that the administration would do all it could to make sure voters see the effect of its commitment to border control -- particularly in states such as New Mexico and Arizona, where competitive congressional races could hang in the balance.

“But no one should underestimate that we are dealing with a problem that is decades old,” he said.

Times staff writer Richard Simon contributed to this report.