Newsmax recently noticed that Hillary Clinton is starting to play up border security and illegal immigration:

More than any other leader of either political party, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has been focusing on the issue of immigration reform and border security – taking hard-line positions that appeal to frustrated Republicans in a move that could guarantee her enough red state support to win the White House in 2008.

On Wednesday, as the media descended on Little Rock to cover the opening of her husband’s presidential library, Sen. Clinton criticized the Bush administration for not using advanced technology to improve border security…

I’ve often said that the only thing saving the GOP open-borders elite on this issue has been Democratic stupidity. No longer. Hillary is many things–venal, arrogant, authoritarian, ruthless –but she is no dummy. (Did you see where she chose to make her tough-on-borders remarks? FOX News Channel.)

Unlike the Wall Street Journal editorial board, she seems to understand that the overwhelming support among Americans of all backgrounds for stricter immigration enforcement is grounded not in knee-jerk “nativism,” but in rational
self-preservation. It isn’t just bigots who want secure borders. It’s families like the parents and widows who formed 9/11 For A Secure America, many of whom are lifelong Republicans fed up with the pro-amnesty antics of the Bush White House. It’s families of victims of illegal immigration, whom both the Beltway and media have ignored.

I myself would never vote for Hillary. But the Republican establishment takes for granted at its peril the significant number of party faithful who may be sorely tempted to do so if the Bush betrayal at the border continues.

Hillary Rodham Buchanan? Don’t laugh. She could be the GOP’s worst nightmare in ’08.