Well, that settles it: Mitt Romney is going to be the next GOP Presidential nominee. GOP voters don’t like him much, but Rick Santorum and/or Ron Paul needed a miracle to derail him, and they didn’t get it, or at least not enough of a miracle. Silver (or at least silver-plate) lining: the ignominious fact is that Romney is the best of the three on immigration—which is not saying a lot, but it’s something.
Two of the previous non-Romney Flavors of the Month, Rick Perryand Newt Gingrich, foundered in large part due to their weaknesseson illegal immigration, which Romney, perhaps tellingly, did not hesitate to exploit.
Of course, this has led the usual chorus of Hispandering Republicans, fee-hungry professional Hispanics andstereotype-struck Main Stream Media reporters to argue that he will not be able to win the mythical Hispanic Swing Vote. For example:
- Mario Lopez [email him] of the Hispanic Leadership Fundcomplained: “Romney’s tin ear on this topic, on immigration, will hurt him should he be the nominee, is hurting the Republican Party and is hurting every conservative who cares about passing conservative legislation in the future.”
- Alfonso Aguilar [Email him] of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles claimed “It pains me to say this, but if we have a negative narrative on immigration, it’s because of Mitt Romney.”
[GOP wary of Romney’s rhetoric on immigrants, By Peter Wallsten, Washington Post, December 16, 2011. VDARE.com links added]
As usual, nobody thinks about the white vote.
On immigration, NumbersUSA ranks Romney second to only Michele Bachmann—who, however, never did criticize legal immigration andpassed up the chance to confront Romney on it and get the issue in play. Of course, this is more of a comment the overall GOP field: Romney only gets a C-.
For the most part, Romney’s low NumbersUSA grade is due to his sins of omission. He has not said anything about refugees,birthright citizenship, the diversity lottery, chain migration, or overall legal immigration numbers.
The one area where Romney has committed a sin of commission:high-skilled immigration. He has repeatedly called for increasing skilled immigration, despite serious unemployment among skilled Americans. He stated in one debate:
“I’d staple a green card to the diploma of anybody who’s got a degree of math, science, a Masters degree, Ph.D.”[America's foreign-born scientists and engineers, CNN, November 23, 2011]
(Bachmann, incidentally, concurred).
Still, on amnesty, Romney has been fairly solid. He even recentlystated that he would veto the DREAM Act. Romney’s platform says: “I very firmly believe … that those people who have come here illegally do not get an advantage to become permanent residents, they do not get a special pathway.” It also states that illegals “should be required to return to their home country.”
