It’s good to see conservatives have gotten back to letting the New York Times choose their nominees for them.

The only silver lining to Mitt Romney being pushed out of the presidential race — temporarily, I hope — is that the media’s preferred GOP candidate, Jeb Bush, is catnip to the stupidest influence-seekers, so Wall Street will be wasting all kinds of money over the next few months.

Then, Shemp Bush will declare and knock Jeb out of the running, only to be replaced by Zeppo Bush. I wouldn’t be putting a lot of money on another President Bush, unless we’re talking about the next president of Mexico.

Most candidates for office at least wait to get elected before betraying voters on immigration, because who doesn’t like surprises? Sen. Marco Rubio, for example, has spent his entire Washington career pushing amnesty, after saying repeatedly when he was running: “I will never support — never have and never will support — any effort to grant blanket legalization, amnesty, to folks who have entered this country illegally.”

It’s almost refreshing that Jeb doesn’t even bother to lie. To the contrary, he’s remarkably frank about his intention to pass amnesty, calling illegal immigration “an act of love.” Well, sure — in the sense that someone’s getting screwed.

I wonder if amnesty operates as a magnet for illegal immigrants … hey, does anyone know if there have there been any measles outbreaks lately? But I’m sure Jenny McCarthy is responsible for the nonstop viral outbreaks in the U.S. since 90,000 poverty-stricken, unvaccinated Central American kids poured across our border last year. Polio will be next.

Recently, ICE agents in Michigan captured a major Mexican drug dealer. They knew he was here illegally, but every time they asked him his immigration status, all he said was: “Obama.”

You know what’s an even bigger magnet for illegals than a politician’s promise to pass amnesty in the future? Governors offering them driver’s licenses and in-state tuition right now.

Guess who was one of the first governors in the nation to propose driver’s licenses for illegal aliens? Jeb Bush. He talked of little else during his second term. Fortunately, the Florida legislature never agreed. Even then-Sen. Hillary Clinton came out against driver’s licenses for illegals in 2007 — at least after polls showed that 70 percent of New Yorkers strongly opposed the idea. Public opposition forced former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer to drop his plan to grant illegals driver’s licenses, and he’s a man who doesn’t give up on bad ideas easily.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie gave illegals in-state tuition. He also directed his temporary Senate appointee to vote for the Schumer-Rubio amnesty. This totally impressed Wall Street, but cost him his erstwhile biggest supporter, moi.

Gov. Rick Perry pushed through in-state tuition for illegals in Texas, and then lectured Republicans, saying, “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart.” (Romney’s response: “I think if you’re opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a heart. It means that you have a heart and a brain.”)

Gov. Mike Huckabee promoted in-state tuition, voting rights and public services for illegals, on the grounds that companies like Toyota and Nestle wouldn’t invest in Arkansas “if we send the message that, essentially, ‘If you don’t look like us, talk like us and speak like us, we don’t want you.'”

Rick Santorum gets exercised about immigration only when he’s running for office, but while in the Senate and throughout the 2012 campaign, he opposed employer sanctions for hiring illegals. Newt Gingrich was for amnestying all illegal immigrants except felons, which he planned to accomplish with a review board to consider the individual case of every illegal immigrant in the country.

The only Republican who has ever opposed the media and big campaign donors on immigration was Mitt Romney. You know, the guy we just kicked to the curb. On immigration, the elites speak with one voice: The donors want cheap labor, and the media hate Republicans who push ideas that are wildly popular with voters.

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney repeatedly vetoed bills giving illegal aliens in-state tuition. He also vetoed a bill to extend health coverage to illegal aliens. And he made clear he would veto any bill allowing driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, so those never made it to his desk.

While Jeb was one of the first governors to demand driver’s licenses for illegals, Romney was one of the first governors to strike a special agreement with federal immigration officials allowing Massachusetts state troopers to arrest illegal aliens.

But with the cheap-labor plutocrats up in arms during the 2012 presidential campaign over Romney’s suggestion that their serfs “self-deport,” all the Republican lickspittles rushed to denounce his untoward remark. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker — all of them lined up to take Sheldon Adelson’s loyalty oath, swearing that, as far as they were concerned, illegal aliens should be treated as honored guests.

You better pray for a “flip-flopper” on immigration, conservatives.

The usual setup is for big donors to trick conservatives into supporting some loser liberal as the GOP nominee. With Romney, it was conservatives who tricked the money people into supporting a conservative.

But instead of familiarizing themselves with the facts, most half-wits masquerading as conservative spokesmen on TV simply repeated whatever Sarah Palin said, and she believed whatever Sheldon Adelson said. Which was: Romney’s not a real conservative! The only real conservatives are the ones who don’t want to separate plutocrats from their servants! — oops, I mean, children from their grandmothers!

Now at least we’re back to normal, and Republicans can run a presidential candidate to the left of Hillary Clinton on immigration, Zeppo McCain.

Copyright 2015 Ann Coulter