Thread: Mitt Romney

Gov. Romney has received an overall immigration rating of "GOOD" from NumbersUSA. I'm glad that Rep. Tancredo endorsed him. Gov. Romney showed courage on the issue of illegal immigration in liberal Massachusetts when he vetoed a bill to provide in-state tuition at Massachusetts public colleges and universities and opposed driver licences for illegal aliens in Massachusetts.

I'll bet he's doubly happy he made those choices, because he can flame Huckabee for it!

Originally Posted by AngelaTC

I'll bet he's doubly happy he made those choices, because he can flame Huckabee for it!

Great point!! And I like your avatar!! :P

Romney is a business man and a darn good one. I don't think that he will think it a good investment for america to pay the bills of the Mexico, which is what we are doing now.

Bottom line is that he is a CFR Affiliate and at the end of the day.. a Politician..

MITT ROMNEY
Rising to a New Generation of Global Challenges
Mitt Romney
From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701f ... enges.html

published by the CONSIL ON FOREIGN RELATION


Rising to a New Generation of Global Challenges


Summary: Washington is as divided on foreign policy as it has been at any point in the last 50 years. As the "greatest generation" did before us, we must move beyond political camps to unite around bold actions in order to build a strong America and a safer world. We must strengthen our military and economy, achieve energy independence, reenergize civilian and interagency capabilities, and revitalize our alliances.

Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701f ... enges.html

Originally Posted by minnie

MITT ROMNEY
Rising to a New Generation of Global Challenges
Mitt Romney
From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701f ... enges.html

published by the CONSIL ON FOREIGN RELATION


Rising to a New Generation of Global Challenges


Summary: Washington is as divided on foreign policy as it has been at any point in the last 50 years. As the "greatest generation" did before us, we must move beyond political camps to unite around bold actions in order to build a strong America and a safer world. We must strengthen our military and economy, achieve energy independence, reenergize civilian and interagency capabilities, and revitalize our alliances.

Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070701f ... enges.html

It sure doesn't look like Ron Paul is concerned about protecting jobs for US citizens!!

Nearly doubled H-1B foreign
high-tech workers in 1998
Rep. Paul helped the House pass H.R.3736. Enacted into law, it increased by nearly 150,000 the number of foreign workers high-tech American companies could hire over the next three years. Although the foreign workers receive temporary visas for up to six years, most historically have found ways to stay permanently in this country. Rep. Paul voted for more foreign workers even though U.S. high tech workers over the age of 50 were suffering 17% unemployment and U.S. firms were laying off thousands of workers at the time.


Voted in 1998 to allow firms to lay off Americans
to make room for foreign workers
Before the House passed the H-1B doubling bill (H.R.3736), Rep. Paul had an opportunity to vote for a Watt Substitute bill that would have forbidden U.S. firms from using temporary foreign workers to replace Americans. Rep. Paul opposed that protection. The substitute also would have required U.S. firms to check a box on a form attesting that they had first sought an American worker for the job. Rep. Paul voted against that. The protections for American workers fell 33 votes short of passing.

From Numbersusa:

"ROMNEY -- and Tancredo's endorsement of him

No candidate -- not even Rep. Tom Tancredo -- has beaten the immigration issue drum more loudly or more often than Mitt Romney this past year. He has continually advertised on the issue, particularly pointing out the weak immigration positions of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. He has raised the issue repeatedly in candidate forums and debates .

Romney deserves as much credit as Tancredo in the fact that immigration is the No. 1 issue among Republican voters in Iowa and one of the top issues for Republican voters nationwide.

He is obviously much, much better than McCain and Giuliani who are terrible on immigration. But there have been lots of doubts among immigration activists about how good he really is on the issue.

The amnesty issue has been the most obviously troubling.

Before talking about just how troubling, I'll note that you will find on the GRID that we now rate his amnesty position as "GOOD." I upgraded it after a long talk with Congressman Tancredo last weekend and after Romney's latest immigration ads stating forcefully his opposition to amnesty in contrast to McCain's positions.

You deserve to know about what Tancredo told me. But first let me talk about why so many people -- including me -- have mistrusted Romney's anti-amnesty commitment.

After stating for months that he is opposed to amnesty, he went on NBC in December and let Tim Russert tie him in knots on the issue. Romney sounded defensive about his positions, as if he didn't really want the elites of the nation to think him hard-hearted enough to send millions of illegal aliens back home. (You can read the transcript of the interview on our Romney page.)

We immediately after that Russert interview knocked Romney's amnesty rating down from "GOOD." Whatever did he mean when he talked about:

MR. ROMNEY: "... the 12 million or so that are here illegally--should be able to stay sign up for permanent residency or citizenship, but they should not be given a special pathway, a special guarantee that all of them get to stay here for the rest of their lives merely by virtue of having come here illegally. And that, I think, is the great flaw in the final bill that came forward from the Senate." < font color=black>

Where do they sign up? And they don't have to go back home? Well, Russert asked that precise question which got a little better answer from Romney.

MR. RUSSERT: "But they shouldn't have to go home?"

GOV. ROMNEY: "Well, whether they go home--they should go home eventually. There's a set per--in my view they should be--they should have a set period during which period they, they sign up for application for permanent residency or, or for citizenship. But there's a set period where upon they should return home. And if they've been approved for citizenship or for a permanent residency, well, thy would be a different matter. But for the great majority, they'll be going home."

MR. RUSSERT: "The children they had born here are U.S. citizens, so do the children stay here and the parents go home?"

GOV. ROMNEY: "Well, that's a choice, of course, the parents would, would make. But my view is that those 12 million who've come here illegally should be given the opportunity to sign up to stay here, but they should not be given any advantage in becoming a permanent resident or citizen by virtue of simply coming here illegally. And likewise, if they've brought a child to this country or they've had a child in this country, that's, that's wonderful that they're growing their families, but that doesn't mean that they all get to stay here indefinitely. We're fundamentally a nation of laws."

Good grief! Good grief! Good grief! If you are going to run on this issue, get it down pat, speak clearly and with conviction, leaving no doubt where you stand. I'm a great lover of nuance in public policy, but .....

Romney's staff -- like the staff of many of the Presidential candidates in recent weeks -- phoned me and tried to explain that the answers to Russert weren't what they sounded like.

I sort of could see what the staffers were saying, but I couldn't buy it. I didn't know what to buy.

Then last weekend, I had my long phone visit with Congressman Tancredo, the man who started before the 9/11 atrocity and stood up and talked day after day, month after month in Washington DC when nobody else would and forced immigration onto the congressional agenda and eventually into the 2008 Presidential races.

I knew that Tancredo would never compromise on immigration. But when he announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race and then gave his endorsement to Romney I wondered if he had been somehow misled.

Here's what Tancredo told me:

Before he gave his endorsement to Romney in Iowa on Dec. 20, 2007, the two met for nearly two hours. The main topic of the conversation was Romney's confusing comments to Russert. Tancredo was drawn to Romney because of the way he had "Tancredoed" the immigration issue throughout the campaign so aggressively, but he had to have some answers.

"I said there is no way I will endorse you unless I get a satisfactory explanation about the Russert interview," Tancredo told me. "I had the transcript in my hand. We went over everything."

Of special concern to Tancredo was this part of Romney's response to Russert: "But my view is that those 12 million who've come here illegally should be given the opportunity to sign up to stay here ... "

"I pushed him hard on the 'to stay here' phrase," Tancredo said.

In the end, Tancredo said he was completely satisfied that Romney's plan was a no-amnesty plan, even though it wasn't exactly the plan he would have.

He said Romney has the idea that if illegal aliens will come forward and sign up they can get a card that will allow them to stay in the country legally for maybe six months, maybe a year, to give them time to wrap up their affairs, let their kids finish the school year and then move themselves and their families back to their home countries.

Everybody has to go home where they can sign up to come back if they otherwise qualif y, according to Tancredo's reporting on Romney, but they can't have any special pathway or extra visas to do so.

All of that meets the definition of "no amnesty" and of "attrition through enforcement" that causes illegal aliens to go home over time, Tancredo felt.

"I told him that in return for my endorsement I didn't want any position in his administration or any nice things said about me or anything at all for myself," Tancredo said. "I said that what I had to have was a 'guarantee on your word' against any kind of amnesty and that the illegal aliens have to go back home. He gave me his word."

It did not sound like Romney gave his word in order to get Tancredo's endorsement but that he gave his word because that was his real stance on amnesty.

On the basis of Tancredo's word and the fact that his account of Romney's explanation also matches what Romney's staffers have been telling me -- and because of Romney's aggressive new anti-amnesty advertising, I've given him a GOOD rating on amnesty, although I would much rather have done so on the basis of simple, unconfused statements directly from the candidate himself. We'll keep watching."

http://www.betterimmigration.com/candid ... z2008.html

From Numbersusa:

OVERALL Presidential Candidate Ratings On IMMIGRATION
How Well Would Each Candidate PROTECT Workers, Communities and Taxpayers FROM OVER-IMMIGRATION?
(SEE BELOW FOR HOW POINTS WERE ASSIGNED ON 36-POINT SCALE.)

EXCELLENT

DUNCAN HUNTER (34 points)


GOOD

FRED THOMPSON (28 points)
MITT ROMNEY (22 points)


FAIR

RON PAUL (20 points)
MIKE HUCKABEE (18 points)


POOR

RUDY GIULIANI (8 points)


BAD

CHRIS DODD (7 points)

JOHN McCAIN (5 points)
JOE BIDEN (")
JOHN EDWARDS (")
DENNIS KUCINICH (")
BILL RICHARDSON (")

HILLARY CLINTON (4 points)
BARACK OBAMA (4 points)

====================

HOW POINTS WERE ASSESSED:

Points are based on candidate promises as of 2JAN08 on
(a) amnesty,
(b) stoppping future illegal immigration and
(c) reducing importation of foreign labor competition, plus
(d) rating of past immigration actions in political office.

Bren4824,
I find myself to be very competent and capable to do my own homework.
I'm not going to depend on any polititian, because they are no
GOD to tell me whom to votefor.
I don't believe on any of these reports and I think they are misguiding the people.
Of course when the person cannot see the big pucture he/she stckis to one point and all the others points are disregarded
I'm going to repeat. :
WHAT IS MITT ROMNEY POSITION ON : SPP
NAFTA
CAFTA
NORTH AMERICAN UNION
OUTSOURCING
FAIR TRADE
SOVEREIGNTY OF THIS NATION

tHE ONLY ARGUMENT i SEE YOU CLAIM IS A VOTE DR. PAUL CASTED 10 YEARS AGO.
10 years ago the entire American nation wasn't paying any atention on immigration, quite contrary, if you said something, everybody called you a racist.
You alone now, with the danger we face don't take your time to read what is posted and keep repeting the same garbage all the time.
Roy Beck can have his opinions as well as Tom Tancredo. I believe in what I read and on my judgment, especially when you see guys like Jim Gilchrit, and the damage he can do.
I AM NOT A PERSON WHO CARES ONLY FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN A BIG PICTURE
Take your time and open the links.