I agree with my colleague Katy Grimes’ assessment that Mitt Romney easily won last night’s debate. He easily command over President Valium.
But the debate ignored an issue critical to California: immigration.
Romney won the primaries largely because he talked tough on immigration. He painted his main opponents, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, as amnesty wimps. This went over big time with the party’s anti-immigration base.
As longtime Romney enthusiast Ann Coulter wrote last December:
“capitulate on illegal immigration, and the entire country will have the electorate of California. There will be no turning back….
“Massive legal and illegal immigration has already so changed the California electorate that no Republican can be elected statewide anymore. Not so long ago, this was a state that produced great Republican governors and senators like Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, S.I. Hayakawa and Pete Wilson.
“If even Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, two bright, attractive, successful female business executives — one pro-life and one pro-choice — can’t win a statewide election in California spending millions of their own dollars in the middle of the 2010 Republican sweep, it’s buenas noches, muchachos.
“Only Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney aren’t trying to sneak through amnesty for illegal aliens.”
By then, Bachmann was not a contender. So that left Romney.
Gov. Etch-A-Sketch
But on Monday, Romney flip-flopped on immigration — again. National Journal reported:
“Mitt Romney’s advisers have long insisted that economic doldrums—not immigration policy—would turn Hispanic voters toward the Republican nominee.“But Romney’s decision to break his silence on allowing young illegal immigrants to stay in the United States reflects a shift in that failing strategy and an implicit admission that the increasingly powerful Hispanic vote could, in part, cost him the election.“After months of mostly stonewalling about President Obama’s order to stop deporting children brought to the United States illegally by their parents, Romney told The Denver Post on Monday that he would not repeal those temporary visas. On Tuesday, his campaign said he would end the program for others if elected president.”
Actually, the Hispanic vote is only about 7 percent of the electorate. It routinely votes about 67 percent Democratic. Assuming Romney’s new position resonates among Hispanics, he might reduce that 67 percent to 60 percent — if he’s lucky. So, he would improve by 7 percentage points. Multiply that (.07) times a 7 percent electorate (.07) and at most he would gain 0.35 percentage points.
Moreover, few of the expected pro-Romney Hispanic switch would be in swing states. Most Hispanics live in big Blue states (California, New York, Illinois) or Texas (Blue state for now). Florida is an exception, because it’s a swing state with a lot of Hispanics. But most Hispanics there are Cubans, for whom there’s already a special law allowing relatives to come here as refugees from Castro’s communism.
Hispanics soon will be a much larger electorate. They’re 16 percent of the population now, but their population is younger, so they have more kids under 18 years old; and many are immigrants, legal and illegal, until they become citizens. But this isn’t the 2024 election; it’s the 2012 election.
Meanwhile, the white (“Anglo”) electorate still is about 65 percent of the national electorate. Probably at least half of them oppose amnesty. How many of them will be offended now that Romney supports amnesty? Probably a lot more than .35 percentage points. Many in Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and other swing states will stay home in disgust on election day.
It’s no wonder his adviser, Eric Fehrnstrom, said last March after Mitt had wound up his primary victories and secured the nomination, “Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”
Obama could have brought up amnesty as yet another Etch-A-Sketch Romney moment, but the president was napping.
Maybe immigration will come up in a later debate. But for now, this issue crucial especially to California is not even being discussed in this campaign.
(John Seiler, an editorial writer with The Orange County Register for 19 years, is the managing editor for CalWatchdog. Originally posted on CalWatchdog.)
Presidential Debate Ignored Issue Crucial to California: Immigration: I agree with my colleague Katy Grime… http://t.co/sQ5ySx7E #tcot
Presidential Debate Ignored Issu… http://t.co/KuLA57IN
Presidential Debate Ignored Issue Crucial to California: Immigration http://t.co/8CLevIgV
LA’s Mayor VillaPelosi, had some comments about immigation policy, although the rest of California is paying for his Sanctuary City. California really needs to refuse to pay taxes until the state government, starts to enforce some kind of immigration policy, like not funding any sanctuary cities.
As a long time AZ resident, who has also had to compete against the influx of illegals for decades, for work and other things as well, and wasn’t thrilled with Romney to start with, I find this flip-flop disgusting. Either we are or we AREN’T a nation of laws, and if we are, they apply to EVERYONE, so giving “scoff-laws” called illegals special dispensation on any excuse is infuriating to me. Had I gone to their homelands in such a way, I’d be fortunate to survive the effort, in most cases! I certainly wouldn’t be given a “welcome wagon” visit, citizenship and so on as a GIFT!
Hey, He can win! This is good stuff!.
So, Romney finally won something, he fires big bird and Jim Lehrer, and tosses away all his previous core beliefs.
Well at least now he can say the poll numbers are his way, and his campaign will continue to adamantly defend the poll numbers.
But then the 7.8 percent unemployment rate came out and Romney and his campaign say its not “Sunrise in America”. like 7.4 Percent Was ‘Morning Again in America.
I was real surprise to see Romney say he was completely wrong about his 47 percent remarks, and it only took him three times.
I am waiting for Ann Romney to take back her “Latino biased against the GOP” and “You People” comments, but its too late for her and her husband.
The venom I saw GOP dish out during the immigration debate against those from Latin America and the sweet names they came up with like anchor baby(one of the least offensive), and they are surprise we remember. Not to mention the Voter ID in GOP controlled states have passd to reduce Obama votes (Gosh right before a tight presidential race they change the rules, please, we know whats going on).
Its funny seeing Romney trying to run down our country and say that 7.8 percent unemployment rate is not real or a good thing.
I guess we will find out in November who people believe.
This is good stuff!, I love it.