There are a number of fence sitters on the right. Speaker Boehner needs them on his team. By castigating the conservative movement now and making them the unpopular crowd, the Speaker and Republican leaders intend to draw the fence sitters to them. Once they have done so, they can move on to a primary season where they can fight against the unpopular crowd intent on driving some incumbents from office.

Then the real fight will begin — immigration reform. The Speaker assumes he can marginalize conservatives through primary season, make conservatives unpopular, then push through an amnesty based immigration reform plan daring his tenuous coalition to move over to the unpopular kids’ table.

While conservatives and much of the rest of the country are scratching their heads over Speaker John Boehner’s temper tantrums this week, the Speaker is laying the ground work for his legacy — he will be the man who gets immigration reform through the House of Representatives. He is already staffing up on this front.