Courting the Hispanic vote while talking tough on immigration

wplog

Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2007 | 2:40 p.m.

Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney is increasingly using immigration to go after his rivals, as he did this past weekend at a town hall event in Henderson. While Romney is quick to say he has no problem with "legal immigration," he outlined an aggressive agenda to penalize states whose polices he claims create a "sanctuary state of mind."

Speaking to a crowd of more than 200 at the Paseo Verde Library, Romney said he would cut federal funding for cities that have "sanctuary" policies, slash highway funds for states that give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and reduce education funding for states that award in-state college tuition to "kids of illegal immigrants."

The tough talk is red meat for Republican primary voters, particularly in the all-important early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, where illegal immigration tops the list of concerns. But, as the New York Times points out in a Sunday analysis piece, the rhetoric is a risky proposition for candidates in both parties, but particularly for Republicans.

The battle over who's toughest on immigration could further alienate the increasingly influential Hispanic electorate, which has turned to Democrats in recent election cycles. John Weaver, a Republican strategist who worked for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, put it this way: “We cannot be a white male cul-de-sac party and survive.”

For their part, Nevada Republicans have courted the state's Hispanic vote with decidedly mixed results.

To be sure, the illegal immigration issue also has implications for Democrats. As Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist, put it in the New York Times piece: “While agreeing with us on policy, people are nevertheless extraordinarily angry. The tone of the Democrats consistently fails to reflect that anger. In that sense, we’re out of sync with the public.”

No wonder the Nevada Democratic Party has devoted a significant amount of resources to cultivating support in the state's Hispanic community for the party's presidential caucus. Hispanics could be a critical part of the equation in the party's quest to turn Nevada blue in 2008 — something national Republicans recognize.

As the Times notes, Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for President Bush, has warned Republicans against using illegal immigration as a "weapon" in the presidential race.

"At least five swing states that Bush carried in 2004 are rich in Hispanic voters — Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida,” he said. “Bush won Nevada by just over 20,000 votes. A substantial shift of Hispanic voters toward the Democrats in these states could make the national political map unwinnable for Republicans.”