Ross Douthat points to the joint editorial by Rich Lowry of NR and Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, urging Republicans to forget the Rubio-Schumer immigration reform plan, instead focusing on “working-class and younger voters concerned about economic opportunity and upward mobility.” Douthat cites Michael Tomasky, no doubt speaking for many liberals, snarking that what Lowry and Kristol really mean is “whites.” Douthat says:

I think I have enough knowledge of Lowry and Kristol’s views on the Republican Party’s prospects to say, quite emphatically, that this isn’t at all “what they really mean.” What they do mean is that it makes much more sense for the G.O.P. to think about its political problems in terms of class and economics rather than ethnicity, and for the party’s leaders to first attack its economic vulnerabilities — particularly the perception, often earned, that the party has nothing to offer wage-earning Americans — rather than starting with an issue, immigration, that has the potential to just highlight the G.O.P.’s disconnect from voter priorities, and confirm the impression that the party’s Wall Street wing calls all the shots. The core of the Lowry-Kristol thesis isn’t that the G.O.P. should necessarily resign itself to a Romney-esque performance among Hispanics in 2016 and beyond; it’s that a conservative party with an appealing, populist-inflected economic agenda will ultimately probably win more white votes and more Hispanic votes (and, for that matter, black votes and Asian votes) than a conservative party whose idea of rebranding is just a headlong rush to put President Obama’s signature on an immigration bill.

Read the whole Douthat here.