Conventional wisdom on immigration reform and the 2014 midterms

Sahil Kapur has written a great story about the trap President Obama is setting for Republicans over immigration reform: either pass it now or I'll do something unilaterally...ensuring that you'll be toast with Latino voters for the foreseeable future.

But conventional wisdom says that won't matter in the 2014 midterms.

In the near-term, the issue is unlikely to hurt Republicans because the upcoming mid-term is expected to be a low-turnout affair where the electorate is disproportionately old, white and conservative. The fundamentals favor the GOP in the 2014 election. The long-run is another matter.

I can't help but wonder how statements like that play with the folks that are being so effective in advocating for immigration reform. Everyone thinks they are going to simply sit this one out in 2014.

I'd be much more likely to bet that there's a pretty big game-changer coming up in about 3 months. By then either Speaker Boehner will have found an ounce of courage and passed comprehensive immigration reform (not looking very likely) or President Obama will have announced significant changes to the country's deportation priorities/policy. If its the latter, the nativists in the Republican Party will be screaming bloody murder and it will be time to see if they can count on Latinos sitting idly by while that happens.

If I were a prognosticator, I'd be keeping my power dry on that one for a while.