| Politics Let's Make a Baby Republicans are fretting about birthrates—and whether immigrants can give them the young conservatives they need. By David Weigel
Posted Monday, Jun 17, 2013, at 08:01 PM ET  The saddest "gaffe" is the one that nobody actually bothers to dispute with facts. Such a misstep was delivered in Washington over the weekend, when Jeb Bush faced an audience at Faith and Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority conference. Rushing through a speech, he decided to skimp on euphemisms. "Immigrants are more fertile," said Bush, chuckling at himself as soon the f-word escaped, "and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they build a younger population. The one way that we can rebuild the demographic pyramid is to fix a broken immigration system." There wasn't much of a reaction from the crowd, which was still settling into the hotel ballroom, but the word fertility sounded odd to the media. The gaffe was born. "Where did Jeb Bush take his sex-ed class?" chortled one CNN host. Watching the coverage you would never have guessed that Bush was right. He could have been more specific—the wombs themselves are not supercharged—but new arrivals to the United States give birth at a rate of 87.8 per 1,000 people. The rate for U.S. citizens is 58.9 per 1,000. The press moved on from Bush, but the three-day conference didn't drop his subject. Fertility was in the air. Jonathan Last, the Weekly Standard writer who just published a book with the subtitle "America's Coming Demographic Disaster," gave a capsule version of his findings to a curious audience. In speeches and panels ... To continue reading, click here.
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