EDITORIAL GETTING IT WRONG GOP'S IMMIGRATION STRATEGY A REAL NO-BRAINER.

THE GOP took a message out of the June race to replace shamed San Diego Rep. Randy ``Duke'' Cunningham, in which the traditionally Republican district almost elected a Democrat.

The problem is that they took away the wrong message.

Brian Bilbray won the special election for the rest of Cunningham's term by talking a lot about immigration and the need for security at the border. Extrapolating to the point of absurdity, the GOP has decided that its best political strategy for November is to stall comprehensive immigration reform and pursue border-enforcement-only legislation.

With reasoning that flawed, the Republicans deserve to lose their legislative majority. They might have considered, for example, that the reason the GOP almost lost the San Diego seat was because of Bilbray's message. Regular Americans, on the whole, favor actually solving the massive problem of illegal immigration reform. Yes, tightening the borders is part of the solution, but most Americans realize that even if no one else ever slipped into the country, there still are 11 million immigrants here without papers.

Perhaps sanity and political survival will prevail once the GOP holds public hearings across the land to help shape its path on immigration legislation. If the party leaders truly listen to what the average American is saying, and not what their political advisers are telling them to hear, then there's still hope for genuine reform.