Romney and the Hispanic Vote

The Republican National Committee held a roundtable on Tuesday to highlight the GOP’s Hispanic get-out-the-vote effort. The roundtable ended with RNC director of Hispanic outreach Bettina Inclán trying to explain to the media the GOP’s message to Hispanics when it comes to immigration without much success because it seems that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney hasn’t communicated to the RNC yet what his position on immigration is.
Recent polls show President Obama beating Romney with Hispanic voters by a margin of as much as 47%.
Now, it seems to me that it doesn’t take higher math to figure out that carrying the Hispanic vote is crucial to a Romney victory in November. It also seems clear that after four years of campaigning to get the GOP nomination, Romney ought to be better placed than anyone to understand this fact of Republican electoral life.
Senator Mark Rubio and the RNC Hispanic outreach committee are doing their best in New Mexico, North Carolina, Nevada, Florida, Colorado and Virginia (Arizona is not in the effort because its polls show it in a “comfortable” lead - something they ought to be adding to instead of ignoring, I’d say), but without leadership from the top in the person of Mitt Romney, their efforts will be drowned out by the Obama campaign’s pounding away at the GOP primary debate record on immigration.
“Hispanics are incredibly disappointed on President Obama and immigration,” Inclán offered. “This is a President who as a candidate promised immigration reform; promised it in his first year. Three years later, we still don’t even have a plan. He talked about uniting families and all he’s done is deport more immigrants than any president in American history.”
When asked what she would say to undecided Hispanic voters who conclude that Romney’s proposals on immigration are too strict and are “out-of-line with what Hispanics want,” Inclán had no ready answer.
“I think as a candidate, to my understanding, that he’s still deciding what his position on immigration is,” she said. “So I can’t talk about what his proposal’s going to be, because I don’t know what Romney exactly — he’s talked about different issues. And what we saw in the Republican primary is that there’s a very diverse opinion on how to deal with immigration. So I can’t talk about something that I don’t know what his position is.”
The Obama campaign’s director of Hispanic press, Gabriela Domenzain, said in a statement that Romney “has proven time and time again that he is the most extreme presidential candidate in modern history on immigration. His position may be inconvenient, but it has been clear,” she said. “He has promised to veto the DREAM Act, thinks all undocumented immigrants should self-deport, has called the anti-immigrant Arizona law a ‘model’ for the nation and has paraded around the country with the nation’s leading anti-immigrant voices. Mitt Romney has decided to be the most extreme presidential candidate on immigration; Hispanics and all Americans have heard it loud and clear.”
Inclán responded to the Obama attack by saying it is “almost insulting” to assume that the only thing influencing Hispanic voters is immigration.
“People continue to pretend that the only thing that Hispanics care about is immigration,” she said. “Most Hispanics were born here in this country. We are American citizens. While immigration’s an important issue, we are American citizens.”
RNC press secretary Kirsten Kukowski stepped in to try to save the day.
“To be fair, everyone, we just started transitioning with Governor Romney’s campaign a couple of weeks ago,” she said. “So, let’s take it back a step here and understand that the RNC’s lane in this campaign is to do voter outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts, and that’s what we’re going to do, and that’s what these people were hired to do.”
She added: “Mitt Romney is going to, I’m sure, talk an awful lot about jobs and the economy, how they affect Hispanics, and his immigration policy. But he has been our general-election nominee for approximately two weeks. So let’s all be fair and put this all in context that we’re sitting in May, May 8, of the general election.”
Well, whatever date we're at, the fact is that Senator John McCain won 31% of the Hispanic vote in 2008, and George W. Bush won 44% in 2004.
It would be useful for the Romney team to get its immigration policy in line with the work Senator Rubio is doing to counter the Dream Act, and to step up to the constituency that could make or break a GOP presidential win in November.
As for the RNC, could it be that the prior planning and coordination of any Roundtable should start with "outreach" to the Romney team???