Victory: 46 votes, 14 short of cloture

All hail! The Dracula bill is dead. But what comes next—the Return of the Return of Dracula?

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Rachael S. writes:

Yay! I did a little happy dance.

National Review doesn’t give credit everywhere it is due. This from Rich Lowry at the Corner:

Just incredible. Congrats to everyone who called the Senate, and to Rush, Sean, Laura, Mark, Bill, and all the other radio guys, and to everyone who blogged so doggedly on this—to Michelle, Mickey, and countless others.

Let’s see. You have been blogging for years about this, and you wrote The Path to National Suicide. And crediting Rush Limbaugh first, when he only just started talking about immigration?!? Michael Savage has been concentrating on it for years on his show (his motto is “Borders, Language, Culture”—and he wrote a book about the subject!) so I think he should have headed the talk-radio list.

LA replies:

For Lowry, today is a victory for the people who, like himself and Limbaugh and Hannity, spent years either being silent on immigration or pushing open borders. Hey, I don’t mind. We know that for mainstream conservatives no one to their right exists. It will always be that way. The main thing is that our side won.

Update: However, I do want to add that NR was great in this debate. While NR is, as I said the other day, the epicenter of unserious conservatism, it is also the case that in this crucial confrontation NR has been the epicenter of opposition to the Kill-America Bill.

But, as I also said the other day, if NR is the epicenter, what is the center? :-)

Below are readers’ responses to today’s happy event.

James P. writes:

Congratulations to you and to all American patriots who, by relentlessly pressuring their Senators, have defeated President Bush’s amnesty bill. As a Canadian I’m extremely happy that the border between Western civilization and Latin America remains the Rio Grande and not the Niagara River.

Joseph C. writes:

I just returned from a meeting and saw the results of the Senate vote. I am glad to see that our hard work has paid off for the time being. Congratulations for your efforts and your inspiration. Even if other johnny-come-latelys carried much of the load, we both know that you were the canary long before they ever acknowledged the existence of the coal mine. Take a bow, my friend.

While I am relieved, I am not ecstatic. Let us remain ever vigilant. It is the price of liberty.

Jeanne A. writes:

Just wanted to drop a note of thanks to you and your blog for remaining steadfast during this battle. While we cannot get complacent, I am still going to celebrate today. It is a good day for America. I am also contacting my Senator, Jim DeMint, to thank him and let him know he can count on a donation from me when he is up for re-election.

Time for a little Handel. I am going to put the “Hallelujah” chorus on repeat and blast the speakers! :)

Howard Sutherland writes:

Great news. Let’s hope it really, truly is dead now.

Kudos to Brownback, who broke with the USCCB position. I’m also glad to see Jim Webb came around. Not only would it have been hard for me to see a fellow former Fifth Marines lieutenant vote twice to ram this nation-breaker down our throats, maybe it’s a sign there’s a new crop of populist Democrats rising in that party that conservatives can do business with—and who, contending for center-right votes, may help bring the GOP back to reason.

I’ll be a little happier this weekend, that’s for sure. Of course, I felt that way a few weeks ago—and then Count Dramnesty hauled himself up out of his coffin again… We can’t take our eyes off these people.

Well, President Bush has succeeded in putting immigration and the illegal alien crisis front-and-center for Americans. Too bad for him he’s learning that Americans just don’t want to do “what’s right for America”!

It will be a real trifecta if this anti-democratic travesty’s failure also drives a stake through the heart of Senator Kennedy’s reputation as an invincible parliamentarian.

Gerald M. writes from Dallas:

Yes, congratulations. You will never get the credit you deserve for today’s victory. But more than anyone else, it is you who have provided the intellectual framework upon which so many of us have based our resistance to the destruction of our country. You are that seeming contradiction in terms, the traditionalist theoretician. Russell Kirk, perhaps, would not like such a title, but when every foundation of our civilization, nation and people is under attack, an effective defense requires such an intellectual, theoretical approach, grounded in the realities of history, culture, and ethnicity.

I think you would be right in calling the Senate vote your greatest achievement. May you have more such.

Many, many, thanks.

LA replies:

I began to reply, but the words weren’t right.

So I’ll just say, thank you.

Dean E. writes from Santa Fe:

“The Dracula bill is dead.”

Great news!

Thanks for your firm, clear, strong, principled leadership.

“But what comes next—the Return of the Return of Dracula?”

They’ll be back.

We’ll be there to oppose them.

You’ll be leading.

John Hagan writes:

Thank you for your years and years of effort on behalf of advocating rational immigration control. You and the late Sam Francis were often the only voices that could be counted on to stand firm on this issue when the whole conservative movement shifted left on the issue.

Charles G. writes:

Congratulations. I think you just added another 25,000 readers to your website. The MSM may not give credit where credit’s due, but a lot of people are starting to pick up on your blogs. What was once taboo is getting attention.

David B. writes:

Tuesday, you quoted somebody that we had fallen back to another trench. Well, we fixed bayonets and recaptured the lost ground. We have to remember that the enemy is led by a swaggering Caudillo who will keep sending his forces forward if he can find any.

Steven H. writes:

I just called the White House at 1-202-456-1111 to let him know how good it feels as a conservative (I also mentioned that my father is a former Republican committeeman and that I voted for President Bush twice) to defeat him, and also that I do not support his war on “terror” whatever that means. I told them that when he says we fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here, that is the one of the biggest canards in American history.

He is sending them from over there so that we will HAVE to fight them here. He is actually ramping up Muslim immigration. The followers of Allah’s prophet are pouring into our country.

Screw this liberal creep. Burn up his telephone lines all the time.

RG, who lives in Dearborn, Michigan, the epicenter of Muslim America, writes:

Just wanted to congratulate you on your first-rate, consistent arguing on the issues of mass immigration and it’s derivative—illegal immigration. Your website/blog definitely played a role and was of value to many of us.

Now is the time to push for a common sensed application of the law—both at the border and interior enforcement. The American public has a say in the future of our nation, not just business interests, ethnic lobby groups and Mexico City.

Rick Darby of the Reflecting Light blog writes:

At last … something to celebrate!

Thanks so much for all your hard work inspiring us to do everything we could to make the Death of America Bill go away.

The United States may no longer be much of a republic or a meaningful democracy—but, for now, We the People can still be heard if we make an overwhelming noise.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 28, 2007 11:31 AM | Send