Thread: ALIPAC: Romney pounces on U.S. rival Perry on immigration

Romney pounces on U.S. rival Perry on immigration

Reuters UK

September 23, 2011

By Steve Holland and Jane Sutton

ORLANDO, Florida | Fri Sep 23, 2011 7:01pm BST

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday pounced on rival Rick Perry's record on illegal immigration to try to raise doubts among conservatives about the front-runner for the party's 2012 nomination.

A day after a Republican U.S. presidential candidate debate on Orlando, Romney clearly believed he had found a weak spot in Perry's tenure as Texas governor -- a policy that allows the children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at Texas colleges.

At the debate Perry had defended the policy as appropriate for a state with a long border with Mexico and said to those who oppose it, "I don't think you have a heart."

Romney, speaking to the Conservative Policy Action Conference of Florida, rejected that view with a shake of his head.

"I think if you're opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn't mean that you don't have a heart. It means that you have a heart and a brain," he said.

Legal immigration, he said, is good for the country but illegal immigration is "something I will stop if I'm president."

Perry, when he spoke to the conservatives, avoided the immigration issue but appeared to concede he did not have the best debate performance. A Fox News focus group of voters had declared former Massachusetts Governor Romney the winner.

"It's not who is the slickest candidate or who is the smoothest debater that we need to elect," said Perry. "We need to elect the candidate with the best record and the best vision for the country."

Perry again tried to raise doubts about Romney's healthcare program in Massachusetts, which President Barack Obama has said was a model for the overhaul he pushed through Congress and which Republicans want to repeal.

KEY ISSUE

Perry, a Tea Party favourite, is ahead in polls of Republicans but his lead is fragile over Romney, who is the choice of many mainstream Republicans. A USA Today/Gallup poll on Wednesday found Perry leading Romney 31 percent to 24 percent among likely Republican voters.

Immigration is a hot-button issue in the Republican Party, an area where Perry does not have a staunch conservative record.

Romney had a brush of controversy on the issue during his 2008 presidential campaign when it was discovered he had hired a company that employed illegal immigrants to work on his lawn. He fired the company.

ALIPAC, the political action committee for the group Americans for Legal Immigration, said 81 percent of Americans oppose in-state tuition for the children of illegal aliens, and that Perry had destroyed his chance of winning the Republican nomination by supporting it.

"Perry has assured his own defeat," the group's president, William Gheen, said in a statement.

The hard-line stance against illegal immigration risks alienating the increasingly potent Hispanic vote in the United States.

U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann, whose support has eroded as a result of Perry's rise since he joined the race in August, tried to raise doubts about both Perry and Romney and urged conservatives not to settle for a safe candidate.

Republicans increasingly see a good chance to oust Obama from the White House with the U.S. economy struggling to rebound from 9.1 percent unemployment and chronic debt and deficits.

Showing the crowd her back, Bachmann said she has a "titanium spine" and her rivals do not have the political backbone or will to eliminate Obama's healthcare overhaul, which Republicans want to repeal.

"If there was any election where we conservatives don't settle, it's this election," she said. "This is the election when we can have it all. Don't settle."

(Additional reporting by Kim Dixon; Editing by Bill Trott and Doina Chiacu)


http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/09/2 ... 8K20110923

bttt

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Romney, speaking to the Conservative Policy Action Conference of Florida, rejected that view with a shake of his head.

"I think if you're opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn't mean that you don't have a heart. It means that you have a heart and a brain," he said.

Legal immigration, he said, is good for the country but illegal immigration is "something I will stop if I'm president."

I am leaning more towards Romney. I think Romney/Bachmann or Romney/Cain ticket will get my vote with no question.

bttt

Added to Homepage--

http://www.alipac.us/article-6613--0-0.html

I really like Mitt Romney, but I thought all the candidates did well except for Rick Perry. His position on illegal immigration disqualifies him in my book. His jobs record is phony in Texas because 81% of the new jobs created in Texas went to illegal aliens and immigrants instead of US citizens. He's attacking Romney on his state health care plan he implemented in Massachusetts, which is nothing like Obama Care, is something the people of Massachusetts wanted and like very much, and even so, Romney admits that after the passage of time there are some things he would change about it, since after it went through the MA legislature, there were some things he liked and some he didn't, but the bottom-line is this plan was never something he thought would be right for the country through the federal government and even though it has this pesky mandate, the insurance is free enterprise insurance, and not at all something that the state government of Massachusetts contrives, manipulates or mandates.

So in my book, Romney won hands down with his criticisms of Perry on immigration and Perry failed completely to hold up his criticism of Romney on health care. Romney will do doubt work to repeal Obama Care and Perry will no doubt fail to enforce US immigration law.

That said, I think we should all keep an open mind on all the other candidates and press Romney to get behind the FairTax as soon as possible.