How quickly the tide can turn atop Capitol Hill.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., went to D.C. in early 2011 as one of the tea party’s golden boys. Now he’s one of the GOP wing’s chief targets. Why? Because the young man has the temerity to push for immigration reform that provides undocumented immigrants a “path to citizenship.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/306717-right-rips-rubio-as-gop-votes-slip-away

Rubio has this idea – along with several other senators of both major political parties – that giving hard-working people who happen to be in this country illegally a path to becoming citizens amounts to “amnesty” for breaking the law.

That’s a non-starter, according to the tea party wing of the Republican Party. Senators have brokered a deal to beef up border security and finish building a 700-mile wall along the southern border, which is seen as a sop to conservatives who dislike the notion of immigration reform in the first place.

I believe another key Senate Republican, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has it right. Graham – hardly a wild-eyed liberal – is on board with immigration reform. He said this week his party is condemning itself to a “demographic spiral” if it doesn’t agree to immigration reform. Indeed, with racial and ethnic minorities changing the face of America – and of its voting bloc – Republicans continue to be seen as the party of “old white men” who have no appreciation for the inexorable change that is taking place in front of their very eyes.

What in the world is happening to a once-great political party?