Posted on 09/25/2011 10:37:58 AM PDT by Clairity
In this week's GOP Presidential debate, Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Rick Santorum both repeated untruths about Governor Rick Perry's immigration position. It is time to set the record straight.
First let me say, I've not endorsed a candidate and though I've predicted a Perry win in 2012, it is not based on a personal desire, but rather the assessment of all the data that I believe the general election race will be dependent on. I did the same thing in 2006, predicting a Barack Obama win, but by no means endorsing his candidacy.
Second let me also say, this week's debate performance by Governor Rick Perry was bizarre and seemed to run out of complete steam in the final thirty minutes. In fact I was so curious as to the Governor's performance down the stretch I inquired to the Perry campaign to see if the Governor had taken ill, or had some other medical issue arise in the final half hour.
But on Thursday evening it did become clear that the GOP opponents intend to rhetorically bloody Governor Perry as best they can until they begin to be eliminated from the race.
In the debate, Chris Wallace asked a direct question to Mitt Romney regarding the in-state tuition rates of children who live in the state, but happen to have parents who came here illegally.
Mitt Romney replied, "I don't see how it is that a state like Texas--to go to the University of Texas--if you're an illegal alien--you get an in-state tuition discount. D'you know how much that is? It's twenty-two thousand dollars a year. Four years of college you're almost a hundred thousand dollar discount if you're an illegal alien--if you go to the University of Texas. If you're a United States citizen, from any one of the other forty-nine states, you have to pay a hundred thousand dollars more. That doesn't make sense to me. And that kind of magnet, draws people into this country, to get that education, to get that kind of hundred thousand dollar break, it makes no sense..."
I was disappointed that Chris Wallace didn't stop him and make him answer the question he had actually asked him.
Maybe Mitt Romney doesn't realize that many children of illegal aliens aren't illegals themselves. And as long as birth-rite citizenship is the law, anchor babies are protected under the law with equal benefits to all other American citizens.
Maybe Mitt Romney doesn't realize that nearly all of the rest of children of illegals had no choice in whether to live in Texas or not. If they were brought there by parents who were illegal--how is that the child's fault? Is Romney ready to charge those children with crimes? Mass deportations? Even Romney has not pledged to go that far.
Maybe Mitt Romney somehow missed the point that Governor Perry's problem is one that the Federal Government created for him. By refusing to enforce current immigration law, the Obama administration has made life for border states unbelievably difficult. And in some cases the Federal Government is even attempting to choke out state's rights to react to border issues in any way whatsoever.
Maybe Mitt Romney is completely ignorant of what the reality of dealing with the border actually means--in real terms. Gov. Perry had to raise $400 million in state taxes to attempt to shore up the border and do the job that the Feds should be doing.
Or maybe Governor Romney believes he doesn't need any votes from legal Hispanics and legal immigrants who are wrestling with the real issue of being in a position where their family's future is in question.
But to set the record straight, it was the state of Texas, and most specifically its lawfully elected legislature that drafted the legislation and passed it with only 4 votes of 181 possible to vote against it. Yes, Governor Perry signed it into law, but it was a definitively bi-partisan initiative that the people of Texas clearly wanted to see become law.
Additionally, Governor Perry has actual compassion for these children who ended up in his state, outside of their own doing. Educating them gets them working and contributing to the state's treasury faster, and is more meaningful than letting them sit on the sidelines.
And despite what the unusually angry Rick Santorum offered, all the legislation did was allow those children (NOT ILLEGAL ALIENS AT LARGE) to get the same "starting point" in state institutions that all of their classmates got. The stupid argument that Romney and Santorum grew red-faced and spittle-spewing over didn't seem to hold true against Texas where non-Texan students would have to pay $88,000 more than other Texas-raised children. And states discriminate that way against other children from other regions of the country--all the time.
President Obama will need to re-energize the American Hispanic vote in order for him to win re-election. They had left him on the economy, and they were never with him on his values. But Mitt Romney--who vows allegiance to a church that had at its core a racist doctrine until only a couple of decades ago--is verging on alienating other ethnic groups, in part because he is not telling the truth about the Texas legislature's law to allow children (not illegal aliens who crossed the border--the children of) to simply pay the same amount of tuition as the kids they sit next to in class.
In short Perry knows this problem intimately. And it will be a cold day in Hades before he ever signs a federal version of the DREAM Act. He believes in fencing, technology, state's rights, and workplace incentives.
Which more or less means he believes in the same enforcement techniques as all the rest of the GOP field.
And for Santorum and Romney to pretend otherwise is sanctimonious and dishonest.
Compassion(ate). Where have I heard that before from Republicans to rationalize all kinds of non-conservative nonsense?
I understand what you are saying. I still do not like his stand against building a physical barrier/wall and his propensity to create a magnet for more illegals to flood in by rewarding enormous dollar benefits to their children. If he alters/changes/modifies his position on those two issues, Perry again goes to the top of my list.
Go Herman Cain!
Any child born to illegal aliens is an illegal alien regardless of where they were born.
Contrary to what is asserted in the article, illegal aliens “at large” will be able to get in state college tuition. An illegal that swam the Rio Grand yesterday will be able to get in state tuition today. To believe anything else is grossly naive.
Right. Perry sucks in a debate and the anti-Perry hordes come out saying it's over. It's a ways til the primaries. We'll see.
You have to have a first rate campaign team to win even the nomination. Herman Cain has one of the worst teams out there...I’ve heard this for a number of months and today it has not changed.
“He (Perry - also known in Austin as “fancy boots”) believes in fencing, technology, state’s rights, and workplace incentives”
_____________________________________________________
If Perry believes in fencing... why did he argue with Santorum, during the debate that you can’t fence the whole border?
The dear author fails to mention that several very tough immigration bills were stalled in committee during the Texas Leg session this spring.
The only one that even got close to being voted on was the “weak sister” sanctuary city bill that mysteriously died after “time ran out” for it to be voted on.
Clearly, Rick Perry as head of the GOP in Texas has the political stroke to have made these bills a priority, but
instead he engineered a “slow walk” death for them in committee by directing his lap dog house speaker Joe Straus
to put a lot of meaningless crap ahead of them.
Texas RINO’s like to toot about the “great victory” of passing a voter ID bill. Mexicans come to Texas to loiter, steal, rape, drive drunk, cause wrecks, steal ID’s, sometimes work.. and get their spawn free educations and health care via my tax dollars.
The DON’T come to vote.....
This article is a white wash fantasy.
Agreed. But Volcker somewhat stained his legacy by helping to whitewash the UN-Saddam oil-for-food scandal.
Kevin needs to sign up to interprete for Rick. I predict a Perry campaign shake up is coming if he is serious about continuing to make a run. If it doesn’t come, I predict Romney goes on to seal the deal early, broadly and certainly, able to gamely shut down all comers, both those in the race and the faux ones outside of it. Backers and voters are dying to game up a leader who can take it to Obama and win in the general election. Perry and Romney can win. I would have much preferred the proven one with the JOBS record. Oh, well?
Americans are just fed up with illegals. Being told we're all racist is bad enough. But now we're heartless too? *sigh*
Without a doubt, Perry blundered badly in the last debate.
He was unable to defend his solid track record in an articulate way while under full frontal assault from the entire field of competitors, the moderators and the audience at large.
He hurt himself badly by not by being unable to articulate his position but by losing his ability to articulate his position because he was wilting under fire.
With all certainty, I will say that his inability to defend himself while underfire while having a steadfast track record on the issues, made him look weak. He was unable to defend himself and he looked bewildered.
That said, IMHO the man stated his case early on in the debate and was on solid ground.
He seemed to have lost his concentration with the yapping dogs all around him.
We’ll see how some of the other candidates fare very soon.
Remember, despite Hermans huge leap in the straw poll, Rick Perry still is at #2
Well, but it’s not a lie. He favors spending tax dollars on illegals for school, medical care, and so on. And he favors giving them in-state tuition.
One of my daughters went to U Oregon, which had the best program in her particular field, and I spent a small fortune on tuition loans. Meantime, illegal aliens were given much better rates than she was. I was tempted, jokingly at least, to tell UO that my daughter was an illegal alien, so please charge us less.
Well, we expect that of Oregon, or California, which are full of libs. But Texas? Perry had only one reason for doing this—he expected it would get him more votes from Hispanics. Meantime, he has joined the gang who think illegals should get better breaks than Americans.
Well .. children of bank robbers shouldn't be blamed for the actions of their parents. Each person should be accountable for their actions not their parents. Are you suggesting otherwise?
Well, I would distance myself from the federal reserve in light of current events LoL
It seems like an odd screen name to pick while Bernacke is burning our kids futures
There are some suprises in here. The issue in TX passed with nearly unanimous votes. I prefer the issue weren't there but it is and it's gaining steam in the state legislatures.
A real problem I have with this issue is that all attention has been focused on Perry and the others are not being vetted. Even Sarah Palin (who is the darling of many on FR) does not want to deport illegals. She is soft on the issue, as well. Who knows if she would have signed a piece of similar legislation that would have been brought to her that had passed with nearly unanimous approval by the legislature. What about Romney, is anyone asking him?
I don't trust any of them to be honest about what they would have done in a similar situation but Perry is not soft on all illegal immigration and many are happy to mislead others on this issue.
Website has candidates’ positions on illegals/immigration:
http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Immigration.php
==
NumbersUSA grades the candidates:
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/action/2012-presidential-hopefuls-immigration-stances.html
“You have to have a first rate campaign team to win even the nomination. Herman Cain has one of the worst teams out there...I’ve heard this for a number of months and today it has not changed.”
That is a flat out lie.
I am very close to the HC campaign and they are doing an outstanding job. Despite the media trying to ignore him and/or write him off, his support, fundraising, name recognition and positive intensity continues to rise. He has a fraction of what the other candidates bring in but does 10 times more with it.
It’s usually a pretty good sign a candidate is doing poorly when the supporters revert to lying about other campaigns. Hmmm
Kevin McCullough is either a liar or has no idea about the issue he writes.
His piece is full of statements that are simply not true.
The premise is incorrect; anchor baby status is a creation of the State Dept with support from various other federal agencies (with tactit IF-THEN support from a few courts).
Lets extend the proposition: How to Overcome the USA: simply arrange for enough of "your" citizens to drop newborns within the USA and within a few decades you will control the voting booths. The founders, the early courts and most of the contemporaneous authorities had no difficulty recognizing and avoiding the possibility of such an invasion.
Maybe Mitt Romney doesn't realize that nearly all of the rest of children of illegals had no choice in whether to live in Texas or not.
Pathetically irrelevant unless, of course, one buys into the anchor baby fiction.
Maybe Mitt Romney somehow missed the point that…the Obama administration has made life for border states unbelievably difficult.
Patently irrelevant.
That is were I stopped reading, one doesn’t have to be a Romney supporter to find this author’s argument a waste of the reader’s time.
Off to a football game.
Eleven states also permit illegal immigrants to obtain in-state tuition. They are Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
I have much less concern with the Texas policy than I do with Perry’s inability to articulate a defense. He’s getting a raw deal in these early debates with the moderators setting it up to be a Perry bash fest, and the other candidates savaging him as I have never seem in a primary on either side. That said, he knows these issues are coming, and he is disastrously bad in both articulating a decent response and also repositioning to move on to other issues. The fact, that we have seen three debates almost entirely repeat sparring on these without putting the issues to rest is not a good sign. We will be sending our candidate into a literal war with the media and Obama, and the winner must be able to battle effectively.
I desperately want to see Perry succeed in this because he is the perfect foil to Obama, but this week was a disastrous week for him. I hope he recovers, because I do not have faith that any one else on the stage is well positioned for the general.
I am elated about Cain, and there is nothing I would rather see than a Cain presidency. Running a new-comer is a risky strategy, though, and I would prefer a veteran political chief executive.
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