Romney battles anti-immigrant perceptions
HIALEAH, FLA. “Mi papa no habla espanol.”
My father doesn’t speak Spanish, Craig Romney announced to the crowd gathered in the parking lot outside Casa Marin restaurant.
It was less apology than explanation, and it hardly mattered to the 200 mostly Cuban-american voters
who had ventured out on a muggy South Florida afternoon to hear Mitt Romney make his pitch to be the 45th president of the United States.
Whatever his linguistic limitations, the former Massachusetts governor was telling his audience in English exactly what it wanted to hear — slamming a decision last year by President Barack Obama to liberalize U.S. policy toward Cuba.
“So with Cuba, he says, ‘OK we’re going to open up remittances and extend travel to Cuba as a show of kindness and a gift.’ And, of course, gifts to people who are fundamentally evil are never returned,” Romney said. “The right course for America is to stand with strength against despots.”
Fidel and Raul Castro make for easy targets here in MiamiDade County, home to America’s largest expatriate Cuban population.
The historically conservative community has long played a central role in Florida’s Republican politics — and Romney’s support among Cuban-ameri- cans has surged in the run up to Tuesday’s GOP primary in the Sunshine State.
According to a poll last week by ABC News and the Spanishlanguage Univision network, Romney had 49 per cent support among Latinos planning to vote in the GOP primary. Only 23 per cent said they would back Newt Gingrich.
Romney’s strength has come thanks to a series of high-profile endorsements from members of South Florida’s Republican congressional delegation, including Cuban- American lawmakers Ileana Ros-lehtinen and Mario Diaz-balart.
Their backing has fed the growing perception here that Romney is set to re-establish himself as the GOP front-runner with a victory over Gingrich in Tuesday’s primary.
An Nbc/marist poll released Sunday showed Romney with a double-digit lead over Gingrich in the state.
But even as polls show Romney on the cusp of victory in the primary, there are signs he’d face a tougher challenge carrying Florida in the November general election.
Notwithstanding his support in the traditionally Republican Cuban-american community, Romney is battling perceptions elsewhere among Latinos that he is anti-immigrant.
He sparked controversy last week with a call for undocumented workers to “self-deport.”
Gingrich called the selfdeportation idea “fantasy,” and aired an ad last week denouncing Romney as anti-immigrant.
Romney had also drawn criticism from immigration reform proponents for vowing to veto the so-called Dream Act, proposed legislation that would offer citizenship to children brought illegally to the U.S. if they join the military or attend college.
Recent polls have produced a mixed picture of how Florida would vote in the general election. According to the NBC/ Marist poll, Obama has 49 per cent support in the state, compared to 41 per cent for Romney. Another poll, for the Miami Herald, showed Romney ahead.
But the troubling thing for Romney is the ABC News/ Univision survey — which showed Obama with a 10-point advantage over the potential GOP nominee among Florida Latinos.
That kind of deficit among Latinos could be enough to cost Romney Florida, its 29 electoral college votes and — potentially — the election.
Without Florida, it becomes very hard for Romney — or any Republican nominee — to win back the White House.
Should Romney win Tuesday’s primary and begin to inch closer to the GOP nomination, expect plenty of talk about the possibility of him picking a Floridian as his running mate. The short list would include rookie U. S. senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-american, or even former governor Jeb Bush.
“That’s a live possibility in my mind,” says Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virgina. “Yes, there’s the dynasty problem but it may well deliver Florida. And Bush’s wife is Hispanic, and the whole family is Spanish-speaking.”