Thread: Candidate Perry shifts to hard line

Candidate Perry shifts to hard line
Monday, August 22, 2011 Last updated: Monday August 22, 2011, 8:03 AM
BY ROBIN ABCARIAN|AND MAEVE RESTON
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
The Record

Once a 'moderate' on immigration

Advocates for immigrants in Texas were heartened last year when the Republican governor, Rick Perry, said Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigrants "would not be the right direction for Texas."

But in June, Perry convened a special session of the Legislature, hoping to pass a measure outlawing sanctuary cities - places where police are not allowed to ask people they detain about immigration status.

The law, which had already failed during the Legislature's regular session, was defeated a second time thanks to an opposition coalition that included immigration activists as well as law enforcement officials, evangelical pastors and Republican business owners, one of them among Perry's biggest fund-raisers.

Why did the governor push the ban in a state where no official sanctuary cities even exist? Many in Texas, including Perry supporters, thought they knew the answer: He was considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination.

As governor of the state with the longest common border with Mexico - 1,254 miles - Perry entered the presidential race in a unique position among the top tier of Republican presidential aspirants.

His state is home to nearly a fifth of the U.S. Latino population, and in his most recent reelection, he received 38 percent of the Latino vote. Like other ambitious Republicans in Western states with large Latino electorates, he has held more moderate or nuanced positions on illegal immigration than others in his |party.

In 2001, Perry supported a Texas version of the DREAM Act, which allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and has drawn strong opposition from many conservatives. Perry also has pressed for a guest-worker program and has said he supports a border fence, but only in high-population areas.

"There's a lot of gray with Perry," said Republican restaurateur Louis Barrios of San Antonio, who has raised money for Perry and believes the governor's views were informed by his hardscrabble West Texas upbringing. "He's a farmer. A poor farmer. He knows what immigrant labor has done for this country."

But his more recent moves have leaned to the right. In May, Perry signed a stringent voter ID law that required citizens to show one of five acceptable ID photographs before they may vote. (Opponents argued that the requirement would disenfranchise the poor and minorities who lack passports or driver's licenses.)

Perry's previous moderate stances already have caused him problems among Republican voters, particularly those who oppose compromise on illegal immigration.

But his more recent conservative positions carry a risk as well, imperiling his standing among Latinos, an important voting bloc in national battleground states such as New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. In June, Perry got a chilly response when he spoke at a conference of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials in San Antonio. Outside the conference, a coalition of Latino and civil rights groups staged a protest against him.

Like all the 2012 candidates, Perry is being pressed for details on how he would handle illegal immigration. Since he entered the race, Perry has offered voters in New Hampshire and Iowa a stock response: that it's pointless to talk about immigration reform until the border is secure.

That position, essentially pushing the difficult issues off to the future, has become a common response among many Republican candidates.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/nationa ... _line.html

This is an excellent article on Gov. Rick Perry's positions or (non positions) regarding Amnesty/Illegal Immigration.
My question however is this:
Since when has the McClatchy news group ever written words about a conservative candidate without having the specific intent to trash that individual or to cause a rift, a schism, amongst opposition camps who pose a threat to their chosen candidate?
This only means that regarding the above article; quite possibly BOTH McClatchy AND the Perry campaign are lying to the American public.
Perry, if he is truly courting the Liberal Hispanic votes by refusing to take a public stand on the above issues, risks losing all votes from moderates, Independents, conservative "pubes" and Dems, in the electorate who have had their belly's full of the LaRaza thugs.
Perry obviously hasn't gotten the message that specificity is what is being required now by voters.
Governor Perry can continue to talk with a "paper-a**", but he'll be greeted with a thumbs-down vote November 2012.