Thread: Gingrich Doubles Down on Immigration at Latino Event

ABC News
By MATTHEW JAFFE and JORDAN FABIAN
Jan 8, 2012 7:01pm

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said today that the country is not “heartless” and should allow undocumented immigrants to remain here if they have already laid down roots.

“We are not going to go into those churches and those neighborhoods and tear apart those families. The American people aren’t heartless,” Gingrich said before a packed crowd at a Latino outreach event held at Don Quijote’s Mexican Restaurant in Manchester.

“We have to end the period of having people in the shadows,” he said. “It’s bad for the country, it’s bad for the people, it leads them to get excluded, it is dangerous. It means those that need help are afraid to show up and ask for it. So I want to find a path that gets us to a system where four or five years from now 99.99 percent of everybody in the United States is here legally and we’re comfortable with it.”

The immigration issue has mainly been relegated to the back seat in the New Hampshire GOP primary. But it was thrust out into the open at Gingrich’s Hispanic outreach event, which was picketed by Occupy protesters and at times turned contentious.

Gingrich has outlined the most moderate immigration stance of all the Republican presidential candidates. At a debate in Washington, D.C., in November, Gingrich said the government should not expel immigrants if they have been here for a quarter of a century, raising a family, paying taxes, and obeying the law. He voiced support for granting those undocumented immigrants legal status, but not full citizenship, and for a temporary guest-worker program for undocumented individuals in the United States.

That stance drew widespread criticism from Gingrich’s GOP rivals, who have voiced more conservative approaches to the controversial issue. Front runner Mitt Romney, who won Iowa and leads the polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina, said only days before the caucuses that he would veto the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for some undocumented children of immigrants who attend college or serve in the military.

“There are parts of it I like,” Gingrich said today of the immigration measure, explaining that he supports granting a path to citizenship to young people who enlist in the military, but not to minors who attend college.

While some Latinos in Iowa and New Hampshire have recently said they will not vote for Romney due to his immigration position, the former Massachusetts governor has enjoyed a far better start to the GOP primary than Gingrich.

Gingrich is coming off a disappointing fourth-place finish in last week’s Iowa caucuses, a dramatic fall for him after he surged to the top of the polls in December. But he brushed off concerns about his standing in the race during a media availability following the event.

“We have begun to set the stage for South Carolina and clearly we have begun to describe the gap between the Massachusetts moderate and the Reagan conservative,” Gingrich said, referring to Romney with the former moniker.

The former House speaker has openly courted the support of Latinos throughout the 2012 race, even in states with few of them like Iowa and New Hampshire. According to the 2010 Census, Latinos constitute only 5 percent of the population in Iowa and 2.8 percent in New Hampshire.

Gingrich’s daughter, Kathy Lubbers, who is fluent in Spanish, introduced him at the town-hall style event today, and he boasted about several Latinos working on his campaign team. Campaign staff distributed Spanish-language campaign literature, including one titled “10 Razones Por Que Los Latinos Deberían Apoyar A Newt Gingrich Como Presidente.” He also spoke at length about issues affecting the community beyond immigration, such as jobs, education, family values and the influence of Iran in Latin America.

“He has been working with and including the Hispanic community for seven, eight years. We have had a Hispanic person leading the charge for us for multiple years on a variety of topics even before we were involved with this presidential campaign,” Lubbers said in an interview with Univision News following the event. “We have a lot of people in place, probably more than any other candidate. So I’m hopeful that it actually comes to fruition and we’ll just have to see if it plays the way we’re hoping it does.”

But along with that, he’s facing additional scrutiny over how he would implement his immigration plan. A town hall participant named Hector Velez asked Gingrich whether he would make an Obama-like promise on immigration and pass his plan within the first 100 days of his administration.

Gingrich was vague, replying that he would not pass his proposal as a single piece of legislation — the approach that has been used in the past — and instead would break it up into different pieces. He added that he is “committed” to passing his plan into law.

Matthew Jaffe is covering the 2012 campaign for ABC News and Univision. Jordan Fabian is political editor for Univision in English.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...-latino-event/

cbslocal.com
January 8, 2012 5:58 PM

MANCHESTER, N.H. (CBS) – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich spoke with dozens of Hispanic voters during a town hall meeting in Manchester, talking to them about immigration and campaign finance.

Gingrich also defended himself against charges of racial insensitivity during the town hall meeting.

A black man told Gingrich Sunday he was insulted over the former speaker’s comments that most African Americans rely on food stamps rather than paychecks.

Gingrich pushed back, clarifying his position on the issue.

“There is a real problem in America. We have a president who has put more people on food stamps — people, I didn’t say any ethnic group, people — than any other president in history,” Gingrich said.

“I would like to get more people on paychecks, and I said I would like to debate the issue of food stamps vs. paychecks,” added Gingrich.

As for the immigration issue, Gingrich stated that he would create a program allowing illegal immigrants that have been in the U.S. for 20 years and have an American sponsor to become legal residents

“We have to end a period of having people in the shadows. It’s bad for the country. It’s bad for the people. It leaves them to get exploited. It is dangerous. It means those who need help are afraid to show up and ask for it,” said Gingrich.

“So, I wanna find a path that gets us to a system where 99.9 percent of everyone here in the United States is here legally,” Gingrich added.

Gingrich said that those residents would also have to go back to their home country to apply for U.S. citizenship. He also wants to modernize the visa program to make it easier to come to the U.S. legally.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/01/0...em-in-america/

washingtonpost.com
By Rosalind S. Helderman
Posted at 04:23 PM ET, 01/08/2012

MANCHESTER—Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blasted Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney for suggesting in a Sunday morning debate that those who need to win an elected office to pay their bills shouldn’t run.

At a town hall meeting for Hispanic voters at a Mexican restaurant, Gingrich said Romney’s comment was “very much the opposite of the American tradition historically.”

At a Sunday morning debate sponsored by NBC and Facebook, Romney relayed a story about advice he’d received from his father, who told him you should never run for office if you need to win to pay the mortgage.

The anecdote was meant to show that Romney is an outsider who hasn’t spent his entire life in politics. But it also served as a reminder of his personal wealth.

“We want everyday, normal people to be able to run for office, not just millionaires,” Gingrich said. “I think it’s really important that we find a way to get back to making it possible for everyday, middle class candidates to go out and run for office and have a reasonable chance of winning.”

The unusual campaign stop brought an especially heavy crush of media and a particularly vocal contingent of Occupy Wall Street protesters, who banged drums—and sometimes the restaurant windows—as Gingrich spoke.

Gingrich was introduced by New Hampshire state Rep. Carlos Gonzalez (R)—the first Latino elected official in the state—and his daughter, who briefly addressed the crowd in Spanish.

“I’m here because we really believe that we have an opportunity to pull together people of all backgrounds,” Gingrich said. “We particularly wanted to reach out to the Latino community, but also frankly, to all ethnic communities…It’s very important for us to make a case that we are in favor of many people, from many places, having the opportunity to become Americans—that this is truly a land of opportunity.”

Gingrich has distinguished himself in the Republican field through his more moderate stand on immigration and his aggressive outreach to immigrant communities. His campaign distributed Spanish-language fliers and buttons at the event. One glossy card, available in both Spanish and English, offered “10 reasons why Latinos should support Newt Gingrich for president.”

Among the reasons, “Latinos owe Obama nothing” and “Newt Gingrich has a record of Hispanic inclusion.”

Gingrich told the crowd that he favors modernizing the process for obtain temporary visas to visit the United States, as well as a more robust guest worker program. He said he would like to secure the border and said the United States has a “moral obligation” to help Mexico fight drug traffickers largely funded by U.S. money.

He said he favors allowing young people who have been brought to the United States illegally to become citizens if they serve in the United States military, one piece of the so-called Dream Act backed by many Democrats. (He said he did not support another part of the act, which would also provide a path to citizenship for those who attend college.)

And he repeated a plan that has come under intense fire from Republican opponents to establish local review boards to determine whether some longtime illegal immigrants who have paid taxes and established ties to their communities could obtain legal residency.

“My goal is very straightforward: We have to end a period of having people in the shadows. It’s bad for the country. It’s bad for the people,” Gingrich said.

He said Americans want a solution to the immigration issue that does not demand tearing up families. “The American people aren’t heartless,” Gingrich said in a line that echoed a state from Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), who apologized after suggesting in a debate that those who opposed his home state’s program of offering in-state tuition to some children brought into the country illegally lacked compassion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...kljP_blog.html

It's On to South Carolina for 'Kamikaze Newt'




It's On to South Carolina for 'Kamikaze Newt'

By Coral Davenport
Updated: January 11, 2012 | 9:30 a.m.
January 10, 2012 | 10:48 p.m.
AP Photo/Winslow Townson

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in New Hampshire.

Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign may be going down in flames, but he’s determined to burn GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney as badly as he can before the crash. He could singe his future standing within his own party while he’s at it.

The former House speaker is projected to finish a dismal fourth or fifth in Tuesday night's New Hampshire GOP primary, following his disappointing fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses a week ago. After such a lackluster performance against Romney, the first nonincumbent Republican to win back-to-back victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, Gingrich did not seem inclined to bow out of the race.

Instead, Gingrich indicated that he is heading to South Carolina with guns blazing against Romney, ahead of the Palmetto State’s Jan. 21 primary.

“We'll head to South Carolina tonight and kick off tomorrow morning a campaign for jobs and economic growth, a campaign for a balanced budget, a campaign for returning power to the states through the 10th amendment,” he said in a speech as the New Hampshire returns showed him battling for fourth place with former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

A political action committee backing Gingrich plans to flood South Carolina airwaves with ads claiming that Romney, as head of the Bain Capital private equity firm, looted companies and laid off employees.

Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire Las Vegas casino owner, gave $5 million to the pro-Gingrich PAC to help air the ads. The committee, Winning Our Future, run by former Gingrich aides, will also release on Wednesday a 28-minute video, "When Mitt Romney Came to Town," attacking the former Massachusetts governor’s record at Bain. A trailer of the video intones: “A story of greed, playing the system for a quick buck, a group of corporate raiders led by Mitt Romney--more ruthless than Wall Street.”

Although at this point it’s all but impossible to imagine Gingrich’s path to the nomination, he seems determined to continue his efforts to derail Romney’s front-runner status.

“We're going to go all out to win in South Carolina. We think that's a key state for us,” Gingrich said on Tuesday night on CNN News. “I think as we go south in South Carolina, we're going to have a very different set of arguments, and I think he will have a fairly hard time defending his record when we get to South Carolina.”

But the new offensive has raised the hackles of some in Gingrich’s own party, who say they’re uneasy with attacks that appear to criticize capitalism itself. The biggest victim of the attacks, they contend, will likely be Gingrich himself.

“Newt is using the language of the Left in going after Romney on Bain Capital,” conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said. “That makes me uncomfortable.”

In a blog post titled “Kamikaze Newt,” Republican strategist John Feehery wrote, “Gingrich, the man who in many ways invented the modern warfare tactic of negative campaigning, is obviously furious that Mitt Romney carpet bombed him in Iowa. Knowing that he has no chance of winning the nomination, Gingrich is now doing everything he can to sink Romney’s ship.… Newt is mad, very mad, and when Newt gets mad, he gets stupid. And his efforts to bring down Romney on personal grounds are not only counterproductive for the party, they are counterproductive for Newt.”

Conservative thinker William Kristol, writing in the Weekly Standard, called Gingrich’s attacks of Bain Capital “unfair, over the top, and, for that matter, all over the place.”

On Tuesday, Gingrich’s campaign also started airing an aggressive ad in South Carolina attacking Romney’s record on abortion rights.

“What happened after Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney changed his position from pro-abortion to pro-life?” a female narrator asks as a picture of an unhappy-looking Romney fills the screen and spooky music plays. “He governed pro-abortion.”

An aggressive Gingrich push in South Carolina could attract conservative voters away from Romney. But it could also backfire for Gingrich by splitting the conservative vote between Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, which could have the effect of increasing Romney’s lead, who is stronger among the party’s moderates and independents who lean Republican.

In his speech on Tuesday night to New Hampshire voters, Gingrich said, “I'm asking each of you not to slow down. In the next couple of days, make a list of every person you know in South Carolina and every person you know in Florida, because those are the next two great contests.… I believe we can reach out and we can create a majority that will shock the country and a majority that will begin to put us back in the right track. It is doable. It is a daunting challenge, but consider the alternatives.”

Gingrich has long enjoyed status as a respected party elder statesmen and ideas-generator. But his crash-and-burn campaign, while a threat to Romney, could also damage his own standing if he hopes to continue to influence GOP party politics and Washington policy debates.

Feehery, who was a top GOP leadership aide during Gingrich’s speakership, wrote, “It was Churchill who said that revenge was best served cold. Becoming a kamikaze pilot in a fit of pique is hardly the best way to get revenge or to restore your political reputation.”


It's On to South Carolina for 'Kamikaze Newt' - Coral Davenport - NationalJournal.com


Don't you think it is time these candidates start talking about the issues, it is though they want Obummer to get in!!!! It isn't like there aren't enough issues to tear him down on...I mean I am saying!!!!!