Arizona Ruling Will Help GOP—in the Short Run

The judge's decision to block key parts of Arizona's immigration law will likely help Republicans in the midterm elections, writes Eugene Robinson. They can argue that the "big bad federal government" interfered with the state's right to kick out people who shouldn't be there in the first place. Robinson explains why he thinks the law is flawed but sticks mostly to the political fallout: Republicans, he warns, had better enjoy their short-term gains, because they come at the expense of the party's future.

"This is a huge long-term problem for Republicans, who risk becoming branded as the anti-Latino party—and driving the nation's biggest and fastest-growing minority group into the arms of the Democratic Party for a generation or more," he writes for the Washington Post.
(More Arizona stories.)