DOUGLAS SCHOEN AND ANDREW STEIN: Democrats will lose this fall by fighting over immigration now.
On the other hand, as I’ve written here previously, for Democrats a “bad” deal might be better than no deal at all — if if looks like Mitch McConnell might be able to cobble together enough votes between Republicans and vulnerable Red State Dems for an even “worse” deal.
By focusing exclusively on the Dreamers and offering no practical limits on immigration, much less any border security, the Democrats are in the process of writing their own political obituary for November and beyond. But a deal with President Trump can turn this perennially difficult issue into an electoral benefit. Here’s how.My hunch is that Schumer and Pelosi are willing to take the risk because they don’t believe that 1.8 million legalized Dreamers are enough to ensure that elusive Permanent Democratic Majority.
President Trump has proposed a compromise by offering a path to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers, building a wall on the southern border, ending the visa lottery program, and ending what he calls “chain migration” and what the Democrats call “family unification.”
In fact, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has proposed a bill in Congress based on these four planks. The Democrats have previously said this proposal is dead-on-arrival, which is a clear mistake and there are some small bits of evidence now that the party is waking up to the fact that the Schumer-Pelosi approach was just plain wrong.
On the other hand, as I’ve written here previously, for Democrats a “bad” deal might be better than no deal at all — if if looks like Mitch McConnell might be able to cobble together enough votes between Republicans and vulnerable Red State Dems for an even “worse” deal.
41 by Stephen Green 
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