The Ugly Side of Mitt Romney

It’s Not a Pretty Picture

Anti attitudes towards non-Anglo foreigners  have been a part of the fabric of American culture for centuries.  In the 19^th century the targets were the Irish and the Italians and in western states, the Chinese.  Later bias and hatred was openly expressed against immigrants from eastern Europe.  In the latter part of the 20^th century the anger has been directed as those of Hispanic descent, in part because many illegal immigrants have been Hispanics.

A hard line on illegal immigration has become a part of the Conservative agenda.  Unfortunately, in some cases this has spilled over into anti-Hispanic bias, with such issues as making English the “official” language of the United States.  (A free and open democracy does not need an “official” language, for the same reason that it does not need an “official” religion.)  Conservatives in Alabama and Arizona have enacted laws that essentially allow the police to confront and possibly arrest anyone with an accent.  Hispanics need to be carrying "papers" as though they resided in some Soviet controlled country of several decades ago.



Just Don't Expect an Answer
Or an Apology



Mitt Romney has made a hard line on illegal immigration a part of his Presidential campaign, it's a way for him to appeal to hard right Conservatives.  It seems that in Mr. Romney’s view, every illegal alien is a person in their mid 20’s, probably in a drug gang and someone who has come to the U. S. for its welfare benefits and to get in-state tuition at Texas Tech.

Mr. Romney fails to recognize that a large number of illegal immigrants in the United States are young people who were brought to this country as children, and have grown up in America and for all intense purposes are American as any other child who was raised in the United States. To him it is a horrible thing to treat these people as decent men and women who have through no fault of their own grown up in America. 



Mr. Gerson and His Boss



 Michael Gerson is a strong conservative, former member of the Bush White House, a Heritage Foundation alumnus and currently a columnist for the Washington Post (surprised?).  His take on Mr. Romney is this.

One of the vast improvements of Mitt Romney’s current presidential campaign over his previous one has been its relative freedom from obvious, cringe-inducing pandering. Until now . . .

But Romney has consistently used immigration as a wedge issue in Republican primaries. . . Clearly, Romney strategists saw an opportunity in Rick Perry’s statement that Republicans were being heartless on education benefits.  . . . Four years ago, immigration was exhibit one in the case for Romney’s political inauthenticity. Now his campaign has revived those memories. The specific argument that Romney presses is weak. Of all the measures against illegal immigration that might be contemplated, the punishment of children who have committed no crime can’t be high on the list.

One of the things that has aroused Mr. Gerson’s ire is an ad by Mr. Romney.

It uses a statement praising Perry by former Mexican President Vincente Fox as though it were an endorsement by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The last time I checked, Mexico was an important ally – a country that Romney, if elected president, would need to deal with daily. Fox’s words in the commercial are innocuous – simply thanking Texas and Perry for the education measure they had passed. So why is Fox’s statement supposed to be disturbing or sinister? Because Fox is a foreigner? Because he has a Mexican accent?

Mr. Romney has been running for high office for over 16 years.  In 1994 with no qualifications other than the fact that he had made a lot of money buying companies with other people’s money he ran for the Senate against Ted Kennedy and lost.  In 2002 with no other qualification than having run the Winter Olympics in Utah he ran for and won the governorship of Massachusetts.  After two years in office, in 2004 he essentially abandoned working in that office to run for President, and polls show when he left office in 2006 he would not have been re-elected.

No one other than Mr. Romney has been clamoring for Mr. Romney to be President.  He appears to have no core values than cannot change if he thinks it is in his political interest to do so.  He is the “focus group” candidate, tailoring his image to what he thinks the electorate wants to see.  For 2012 it is the “dressed down” Mr. Romney who professes to be just one of the people, assuming one of the people is someone with over $100 million in net worth and multiple residences.

Mr. Romney talks about Social Security, but he has no program, no ideas, no proposals to deal with the issue of its potential shortfall.  He does not endorse the Paul Ryan plan to replace Medicare with private insurance, because he knows that plan is toxic in the general election.  He says he has a plan that will achieve the Ryan goals and but he has never released it.  There is no controversial stand in any of his positions, it is all poll tested for Republican votes.  His major campaign theme, he will not apologize for America, like that will help increase employment, solve the energy problem, bring peace to the middle east and cure every other problem.

With respect to the Hispanic community, Texans like Gov. Perry and George W. Bush before him have proposed somewhat humane programs because they have lived and worked with the large Hispanic population in Texas. They know first hand that these are decent, hard working, men and women who have as strong a set of strong values as the rest of us.  They know the children of illegal aliens who are themselves in this country illegally are not criminals to be rounded up and deported to a country they have never known.  Does Mr. Romney plan to round up millions of illegal aliens and put them in the hell-holes of privately run prisons?  Probably not, but since he won't talk about it maybe he is planning that.

People like Mr. Perry and Mr. Bush also know there is an economic argument for accepting children who have grown up in America even though they are here illegally.  If a child was brought to the U. S. before the age of 6 and is now 18, the U. S. taxpayers have spent hundred of thousands of dollars educating that person.

What possible economic sense does it make to send that person to another country, or to deny them the right to higher education which allows them to be even more productive and a greater contributor to society.  Surely as a former businessman Mr. Romney understands that a company does not spend 12 years training  employees, and then just as they are ready to become productive employees, fire them.  What idiocy!

Mr. Romney has probably had little or no interaction with the Hispanic community. Bain Capital, where he made his millions Hispanics probably had only token representation, if they were represented at all.  To Mr. Romney Hispanics are the people he knows who take care of his lawn.  Mr. Gerson ends his piece with this.

Mitt Romney is better than this. He just needs to act like it.

Mr. Gerson is a deeply religious person who seems to view the best in people.  Those of us who are not quite so charitable as Mr. Gerson would question whether Mr. Romney is indeed “better than this”.  Based on the evidence to date, we think not.