Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee's chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times.

Ayup. The Republicans, who have historically always had a larger base of small-dollar donors than the Democrats, have pissed the base off so much lately that those small-dollar donations are finally beginning to dry up.

"Last year, my solicitations totaled $164,000, and this year the way they were running for the first four months, they would total $100,000 by the end of 2007," said one fired phone bank solicitor who asked not to be identified.

And what is it that is pissing the base off so much that they're no longer willing to contribute to the Republican Party? Why, it's the scary brown people!!

There has been a sharp decline in contributions from RNC phone solicitations, another fired staffer said, reporting that many former donors flatly refuse to give more money to the national party if Mr. Bush and the Senate Republicans insist on supporting what these angry contributors call "amnesty" for illegal aliens.

"Everyone donor in 50 states we reached has been angry, especially in the last month and a half, and for 99 percent of them immigration is the No. 1 issue," said the former employee.

Heh. Time catches up with everyone, it would seem. The Republican Party had done a fantastic job of keeping the theocons, neocons, paleocons and corporatecons united under a big tent by playing both ends against the middle--but eventually, that jig had to come to an end, and now we're seeing it in action with the immigration issue. Bush and the Republicans are compromising and "granting amnesty" to keep their corporate masters happy, and the base is finally getting around to realizing that they have, in fact, been sold down the river. And they've finally stopped parting with their dollars in the hopes that this election cycle will be different.

But far more interesting than the fact that the base is unhappy is what the RNC has decided to do about it. Now, it's obvious that the lack of fundraising certainly played a part in the RNC's decision to...let me repeat...fire its entire phonebanking staff. But just as important, says the RNC, was the fact that the phonebanking equipment itself was antiquated:

"The phone-bank employees were terminated," RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt wrote by e-mail in response to questions sent by The Times. "This was not an easy decision. The first and primary motivating factor was the state of the phone bank technology, which was outdated and difficult to maintain. The RNC was advised that we would soon need an entire new system to remain viable."

So, faced with the prospect of needing to modernize its equipment to be able to maintain some contact with its unhappy grassroots base, or just abandoning the base altogether, guess what the RNC chose? The latter, of course. And why not? The corporate contributions just keep on rolling in:

The RNC spokeswoman denied that the committee has seen any drop-off in contributions.

"Any assertion that overall donations have gone down is patently false," Miss Schmitt said. "We continue to out raise our Democrat counterpart by a substantive amount (nearly double)."

There is no longer any doubt what side the Republican Party has chosen. They have chosen the corporate cons over the paleocons because the corporate cons have more money. And some of the quotes over at Freeperland (I break with tradition by including a link for your convenience and viewing pleasure) are priceless:

To: de meanr

I’m one of those former donors that told the solicitor a couple of weeks ago that they would not get another dime from me if that amnesty bill passed. 7 posted on 05/31/2007 2:50:49 PM PDT by lady lawyer

To: BenLurkin

Fire the messengers, rather than change the program. There is only one conclusion:

The GOP is dead and waste of time. 9 posted on 05/31/2007 2:51:01 PM PDT by Diogenesis (Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum)

To: de meanr

"There has been a sharp decline in contributions from RNC phone solicitations..."

Good. Payback is such a bitch... 8 posted on 05/31/2007 2:50:58 PM PDT by Czar ( StillFedUptotheTeeth@Washington)

And many, MANY more where that came from.

Popcorn, anyone?

[also at Far-Shooting Politics and frontpaged at MyLeftWing]