Thread: ALIPAC: Day after debate, Perry feels fallout from stand on

Day after debate, Perry feels fallout from stand on immigration

By TODD J. GILLMAN
The Dallas Morning News


Published: Friday, Sep. 23, 2011 - 1:00 am

ORLANDO, Fla -- ORLANDO, Fla. - Mitt Romney and others kept Texas Gov. Rick Perry on defense Friday over a state law that offers discounted college tuition to illegal immigrants, as Perry worked to bounce back from an unsteady debate performance that left some conservatives wondering about his bona fides.

Playing off Perry's contention that anyone opposed to the tuition policy doesn't understand life on the border and doesn't "have a heart," Romney pressed the case that Texas' policy only encourages illegal immigration.

"If you're opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn't mean that you don't have a heart," Romney told thousands of Florida Republicans at a daylong convention for conservatives. "It means that you have a heart, and a brain."

Perry tried to move on, hitting Romney on health care when his turn came but making no mention of the immigration dust-up. That left Romney to exploit a rare opportunity to position himself to the right of his rival.

It sowed doubts with voters like Jo-Ann Walker, a homemaker from Leesburg, Fla., who attended the conference. She said she's perplexed that Perry would defend the policy he signed into law in 2001, given that it means Texas universities charge less for an illegal immigrant who live in Texas than she would pay to enroll her American-born ninth-grader, who lives in Florida.

"Because I'm a Christian, I kind of see where he's coming from" trying to help young people in circumstances they didn't create, Walker said. But "that takes money away from my daughter when she goes to college in four years."

Other GOP opponents reinforced the attack Friday as they wooed activists at the sprawling convention center that hosted Thursday night's debate.

"As president of the United States I will build a fence along our southern border," Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota promised, to enthusiastic applause. "And we will not have taxpayer subsidized benefits for illegal immigrants or for their children."

Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who in the debate accused Perry of being "soft" on illegal immigration, was basking in the afterglow.

"Obviously I think it hurt him a lot," he said in an interview. "People want someone they can trust to take care of a big issue in this country and Rick Perry is ... committed to continuing the status quo when it comes to illegal immigration policy."

Anti-immigrant hard-liners were likewise unforgiving.

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, which opposes illegal immigration, cited polls showing that four out of five Americans oppose in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. "Perry has assured his own defeat," said ALIPAC president William Gheenv. "GOP voters cannot vote for Rick Perry now without legitimizing and supporting in-state tuition for illegal immigrants."

Immigrant advocates call it ironic-and inaccurate - for Perry's rivals to paint him as a moderate on immigration. Perry declined to condemn Arizona's tough immigration enforcement law last year, though he said such a law wouldn't be right for Texas.

He opposes a federal law known as the DREAM Act that mirrors the Texas law in some ways, but would also create a path to citizenship for younger immigrants brought to the country illegally as children - something only federal legislation can do, of course.

"Ronald Reagan was a moderate on this issue. George W. Bush was a moderate on this issue," said Frank Sharry, head of America's Voice, a pro-immigrant group. "John McCain used to be a moderate on this issue. Rick Perry is no moderate on this issue."

John Colon, a GOP activist, Sarasota financial adviser and Romney supporter, echoed Walker's reservations about the Texas tuition policy.

"That goes to Americans' innate sense of fairness. Everybody should have the opportunity to go to college. We just don't think we as taxpayers should pay for it" if you're in the country illegally, he said. "As someone who spent $250,000 to send his son to a private college, without any subsidy, that was kind of a hot button for me."

Like other debate viewers, he found Perry's performance uneven, saying the governor seemed ill-prepared to absorb as many punches as his opponents threw.

Perry, rather than trying to hit back directly Friday, took aim at Romney's perceived Achilles heel, the health care overhaul that served as a partial blueprint for Obama's national plan.

"The model for socialized medicine has already been tried, and it failed - not just in Western Europe but in Massachusetts," he told the crowd. And he acknowledged that he'd left some commentators and viewers underwhelmed Thursday night, after stumbling through an answer about Pakistan and losing steam in the second half of the debate.

"As conservatives, we know that values and vision matter. It's not who is the slickest candidate or the smoothest debater that we need to elect," he said.

Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union and host of Friday's Conservative Political Action Conference, agreed that Perry's stance on in-state tuition will hurt with some Republican voters.

"He's got to explain that a little better," Cardenas said. "I don't think it's a knockout punch. Everyone has a chink in his armor. That happens to be one of Rick Perry's chinks."

Another top Florida Republican, Paul Senft, the state's national party committeeman, said Romney's "brain" attack will help him in the short run.

"That was a good line," he said. But he predicted that Perry will survive, because he alone among the contenders has run a state that shares a long history and frontier with Mexico. "He's had to deal with it. They are oversimplifying the issue."

Justin Sayfie, a well-known Florida Republican consultant, said the boos from the debate audience showed how unpopular Perry's stance is. In a general election, the stance could help appeal to Latino voters and make a difference in states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida. But "it hurts him in a GOP primary."

Dick Armey, the former U.S. House majority leader from Texas, now chairman of FreedomWorks and a tea party godfather, agreed that Perry got himself "on thin ice" on the tuition issue. He argued that Perry's catching more grief than he deserves, partly because the residency policy applied to everyone in Texas.

FreedomWorks isn't endorsing anyone, but Armey and other leaders openly disdain Romney.

Still, Armey said, "he has experience that showed up on the debate dais that Rick Perry doesn't yet have." Governor Perry got impaled. ... I guarantee you'll see a much different performance in the next debate."

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/09/23/393372 ... z1YpOXR3vI

Rick Perry stated yesterday he is still in good rapport with and routinely talks with George W. Bush, even taking the time out of his busy day for a personal 'happy birthday call' on Dubya's birthday.

It shows.

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