Romney vrs Giuliani on Amnesty and the 2008 campaign

opinion | 01-05-2007 | brianbaldwin

[JRochelle]

WASHINGTON -- Gov. Mitt Romney expressed support yesterday for an immigration program that places large numbers of illegal residents on the path toward citizenship, but criticized any form of "amnesty."

Speaking to reporters after a speech on education reform, Romney also invited outgoing White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, a Holbrook native, to challenge Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., in midterm elections this fall.

Romney's comments came as the Senate began heated debate on immigration reform. On Monday, the Judiciary Committee approved a controversial bill sponsored by Kennedy and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would make 11 million illegal immigrants eligible for citizenship.

"I don't believe in amnesty," Romney said, using a word voiced by Republicans to describe widespread forgiveness of illegal residency in the United States.

But at the same time, Romney said illegal immigrants should have a chance to obtain citizenship.


He holds the same position as Bush and McCain and Rudy.

[Antoninus]

No thanks to either of these guys.



Duncan Hunter on the Issues

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[roses of sharon]

You live in CA?

What is happening there in regards to illegals?

Have you considered running?

[PRND21]

He holds the same position as Bush and McCain and Rudy.

Correct.
However, his "can't win" status makes him attractive to certain "Freepers".

[My2Cents]

Right. While "sealing the borders" is the top priority of the immigration hawks, that's basically all they want. In fact, the mantra "Secure the Borders First" before anything else is considered is the typical position. My sense is, why not secure the borders, figure out a way to register those here as part of a guest worker program, develop a path to citizenship, all at the same time. Secure the borders, yes, but not as the only element of immigration reform. I often hear on FR that a path to citizenship should not be part of the package because the illegals are here...well, illegally...and we should be a nation of laws that doesn't reward lawbreakers. That's all well and good, but, you know, the maximum speed limit on the interstates here is 70 mph, and there are a heck of a lot of people that don't respect the rule of law on the highways. I know the analogy isn't a good one, but the point is that there are a whole slew of laws that are selectively observed and enforced in this country. I refuse to hyperventilate if the flood of illegal immigrants has overwhelmed our ability to enforce the law. Fix what's broken. Secure the borders, but also figure out a way to realistically address the reality of the folks who are here and who, like it or not, have become part of our communities and economy.

[NeoCaveman]

Question for you:

If Bush/McCain/Reid/Pelosi shove amnesty down our throats in 2007, isn't the issue then pretty much off the table?

[WatchingInAmazement]

My2Cents says: "What evidence is there that a tough on immigration stance was a winner in '06?"

There's plenty of evidence. Do you mean ILLEGAL immigration? Every anti-illegal immigration measure (4 in Arizona) passed.

Since 80% plus of the American public want illegal immigration stopped, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they didn't vote people out because the candidate wanted the same thing.

Good Grief!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1759649/posts

The Great Illegal Immigration Myth of '06 Human Events ^ | 12/27/06 | John Hawkins

Since the election, you may have heard pro-amnesty Republicans or liberals saying something like this, "The 2006 election proves that being tough on illegal immigration doesn't work as a political issue. Look at J.D. Hayworth, John Hostettler, Randy Graf and Henry Bonilla. After that debacle, the GOP is surely going to cave on illegal immigration now."

Well, as someone who followed the election very closely and did a better job of calling winners and losers than almost all of the political pundits out there (My final predictions: five Senate seats lost and 22-29 seats in the House lost. Final numbers: six Senate seats lost and 30 House seats), I can tell you that being tough on illegal immigration didn't hurt the GOP in 2006. Now you may be skeptical of that because it doesn't square up with the conventional wisdom that you've been hearing, but let me make a case to you.

First off, let's hit the candidates that get mentioned over and over.

John Hostettler was an incumbent congressman who supported the House illegal immigration bill, but he was also an odd bird when it came to fund raising. Essentially, he didn't do it. In the end, despite the fact that everyone knew he was in trouble for months, Hostettler only raised $586,314 compared to the $1,728,054 that his opponent raked in. That's the biggest reason why Hostettler lost. His position on illegal immigration had nothing to do with it.

Randy Graf, a tough on illegal immigration conservative, who was attempting to retain a seat held by Rep. Jim Kolbe, was torpedoed by the Republican Party. The Republican National Committee spent more than $200,000 supporting his opponent, Steve Huffman, in the primary. Then, after Graf soundly defeated Huffman, the RNC threw a tantrum and refused to support him against his extremely well funded challenger, Gabrielle Giffords. Additionally, Jim Kolbe also refused to endorse Graf. This allowed Giffords, who had a massive fund raising advantage, to successfully portray Graf as a candidate who was too extreme for his own party and that, not his position on illegal immigration, led to his defeat.

J.D. Hayworth's loss was particularly noteworthy because unlike the other candidates being mentioned, he could fairly be called one of the leaders of the "tough on illegal immigration" crowd. However, what you will never hear amnesty fans mention about Hayworth's loss is that his opponent, Harry Mitchell, actually tried to run to his right on the illegal immigration issue. For example, on October 24, 2006, here's a message that was posted prominently on the front of Mitchell's web page:

I’m proud to show you the second television spot of our campaign which highlights an important issue to all Arizonan(s): securing our border and ending illegal immigration.

My opponent likes to talk tough about immigration, but the truth is he and those in Washington have failed in their responsibility to secure our border. The number of illegal immigrants in our state has increased 400% during his tenure in Congress. My opponent has rewarded illegal immigration by voting for amnesty four times. Just last month, he voted against 12,000 additional Border Patrol agents and against implementing the border security recommendations of the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission. In his 12 years in Congress, J.D. has given us a lot of rhetoric, but not a lot of results.

Now, after reading that, does it sound like J.D. Hayworth had problems because he was "too tough" on illegal immigration? No, it doesn't.

Last but not least, we have Henry Bonilla, who may be the only candidate in the entire nation who was actually hurt by his tough stand on illegal immigration. Of course, he also ran a terrible campaign and came within 1% of winning the election without a runoff. Had Bonilla spent more of his huge war chest (He had $1 million in the bank when the first election occurred), there never would have been a runoff and he would have been re-elected. And that's even though after the Texas redistricting, Bonilla ended up in a district that was 65% Hispanic.

So, now we've discussed four Republicans who lost in 2006 and were opponents of amnesty. But, what about all the Republicans who were soft on illegal immigration in 2006 and lost as well? Percentage wise, being soft on illegal immigration was much more dangerous to the political health of Republicans than being tough on illegal immigration. These statistics from Roy Beck at NumbersUSA certainly seem to support that conclusion:

* 9.6% with an A grade lost * 25% with an F grade lost * 9.2% with a B grade lost * 6.4% with a C grade lost * 9.5% with a D grade lost

In other words, about 9.6% of the tough guys on illegal immigration lost, while 25% of the amnesty crowd went down to defeat. Along those same lines, these numbers from the same article seem to be rather compelling: * 11.5% of all Republican seats in Congress were lost as Democrats took back control of Congress * But only 6.7% of the members of Tancredo's Immigration Reform Caucus lost their seats.

If being tough on illegal immigration is supposed to be such a killer, then how can it be that the members of Tom Tancredo's Reform Caucus outperformed the rest of the House? The question answers itself.

But, what about the Hispanic vote? Didn't the GOP lose some Hispanic voters because of their illegal immigration stance? Yes, but the numbers related to illegal immigration were undoubtedly fairly small. Now, that's not what you'll hear from amnesty proponents. They'll point out that the percentage of Hispanics voting for the GOP dropped from 44% in 2004 to 30% in 2006. However, what they don't mention is that 44% was an all-time high for the Hispanic vote and that the support for the GOP dropped in almost every demographic group in 2006.

For example, GOP support from Jewish voters dropped from 22% in 2004 to 12% in 2006. Support from Independent men dropped from 51% in 2004 to 41% in 2006. Support from women without a high school diploma dropped from 48% in 2004 to 30% in 2006. In comparison, is the drop in Hispanic support really all that large? No, not really. Moreover, if you compare the numbers from the last off year election in 2002 to the numbers in 2006, the drop in Hispanic support for the GOP is even smaller. It goes from 38% in 2002 to 30% in 2006. That's actually a percentage drop of 1% less than that of white males over the same period (63% in 2002 to 54% in 2006). So, did the illegal immigration issue hurt the GOP with Hispanics? Maybe a little, but even if illegal immigration hadn't been an issue, it seems likely that the GOP would have probably still dropped 8 to 10 points with Hispanics in 2006.

Furthermore, if you look at how the 2006 elections played out, it'll become obvious that the amnesty plan being pushed by the Senate was not a popular policy. All during 2006, across the country, local governments passed laws designed to make life tough on illegal immigrants. Moreover, in competitive races in the country, the voters were almost always given a choice between a candidate that was genuinely serious about securing our border and a candidate that just pretended to be serious about securing the border for political purposes.

So while candidates on both sides of the race aired commercials talking about how they were the real choice for people who were serious about stopping illegal immigration, almost nobody ran any advertisements promising to allow illegals to become citizens or promoting amnesty. That tells you a lot about how popular comprehensive illegal immigration reform is when you get right down to it. Additionally, percentage wise, tough on illegal immigration Republican candidates won more races than candidates who had a poor voting record on the issue.

What it all adds up to is that the GOP had a lousy year across the board for a lot of reasons, but being "too tough" on illegal immigration wasn't one of the problems that they had.

If anything, the miserable performance of George Bush and the Senate GOP on the issue made it impossible for Republicans in the House to be credible when they told their constituents that they could trust them to stop illegal immigration. In other words, the GOP suffered more from being "too soft" on illegal immigration than from being "too tough."

[TomGuy]

Bush obviously has no intention of doing much. The next President better, or we won't have much of a country in another decade or two:

New amnesty push likely in 07 by Bush, Dems

Posted by Mount Athos On 01/04/2007 7:32:40 AM CST · 14 replies · 209+ views Marietta Daily Journal ^ | Wednesday, January 3 | D.A. King Five years into the war on terror, most Americans desperately hoped 2006 would be "the year" for solutions to the long national nightmare of intentionally unsecured borders and the resulting illegal immigration crisis. For many, the dream was that at a minimum, we would begin to see border security and immigration law enforcement similar to what Mexicans still living in Mexico enjoy. It didn't happen. According to a report released in late 2006 by the House Committee of Homeland Security, up to 10 million people entered the United States illegally and un-inspected last year. Georgia watched as its population of...

[WatchingInAmazement]

There are a large number of people on FR who simply misrepresent Rudy's positions, and project upon him positions he hasn't taken. There should be a vigorous debate about the candidates, but when one group of folks continue to make things up about one or another potential candidate, they're credibility in this debate suffers severely.

You are either ignorant of Giuliani or just trying to blind others to the reality.

Rudy Giuliani on Immigration

Click here for the full quote on Immigration OR other candidates on Immigration OR background on Immigration.

* Supports Senate guest worker plan & path to citizenship. (Nov 2006)

Supports Senate guest worker plan & path to citizenship Giuliani has been criticized for embracing illegal immigration. Giuliani continued a policy of preventing city employees from contacting INS about immigration violations. He ordered city attorneys to defend this policy in federal court. Giuliani has also expressed doubt that the federal government can stop illegal immigration. In April 2006, Giuliani went on the record as favoring the US Senate's comprehensive immigration plan which includes a path to citizenship and a guest worker plan

http://www.ontheissues.org/Rudy_Giuliani.htm#Immigration

[My2Cents]

So, in other words, the tough-on-immigration stance wasn't the deciding issue in these races. An important issue, apparently, but not the deciding issue.

Take a reasonable approach to immigration reform, put securing the boards as a top-priority goal of that reform but don't ignore the other issues associated with immigration, and don't hype this as a single issue, and I think the GOP will do well. National security (war on terror) and the economy will always trump immigration.

[circumbendibus]

I find illegal immigration to be a top issue for me as well. It is destroying our security, our schools, and our health care system. I have been following Romney since the elections and was glad he took a positive step to curtail illegal immigration by empowering Mass State Troopers to work with the Feds in picking up illegals in his state. His Democrat successor as governor wants to overturn the agreement that Romney signed. Message to me: Republicans want to do something about illegal immigration; Democrats do not.

[Uncledave]

With Bush and this congress, amnesty will be granted in 2007.

[nopardons]

LOL..how dare you post facts, which the UNAPPEASEABLES demand is not true, because they so badly want to believe all if the crazy stories that they've made up about the candidates they have an extreme animus against...for NO treason.

[nopardons]

Spot on!

[nopardons]

bttt

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

What evidence is there that a tough on immigration stance was a winner in '06?

What evidence does the public have that Republicans in the Senate did nothing?

[nopardons]

Ahhhhhhhh, here you are yet again and this time, spamming with links to your favorite guy. How about the rest of us, who don't share your fervor for old Dunky, start posting links to your threads about him, for every other candidate? Personally, I think that that is a GREAT idea and if you dare to howl about that, we can always reference you back to this reply of yours. :-)

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

There are a large number of people on FR who simply misrepresent Rudy's positions,

I judge him by his ACTIONS... I ain't votin' for the son of a b--ch...

I don't want the '08 general election to be a second Democrat primary.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

There are a large number of people on FR who simply misrepresent Rudy's positions,

I judge him by his ACTIONS... I ain't votin' for the son of a b--ch...

I don't want the '08 general election to be a second Democrat primary.

[texastoo]

Gov. Mitt Romney expressed support yesterday for an immigration program that places large numbers of illegal residents on the path toward citizenship, but criticized any form of "amnesty."

Does the path start in Mexico where it should or is this just more jibberish from the RINO's?