Romney & the GOP platform: Arizona is a model
While the GOP is trying to run away from Todd Akin's boneheaded remarks, they've essentially inserted H.R.3, the bill he
co-sponsored with Paul Ryan, into the party's platform a week before the Tampa convention. Romney, Ryan, and most Republicans concerned about their political future are denouncing Akin's magic lady parts misogyny, but the Missouri Congressman's belief that women should carry to term
every pregnancy, even in cases of rape or incest, is now official GOP policy. Good job winning the women's vote.
And good job winning the Hispanic vote, too! The Romney-Ryan camp's been running ads telling Latinos they're being duped and taken for granted by Democrats—pointing out, in Spanish, that unemployment is higher among Hispanics which, they say, is the President's fault, certainly not their obstructionism on jobs bills. So what better way to attract Hispanic voters than to write into the GOP platform the smooth stylings of Arizona, which, everyone knows, is a welcoming, harmonious Shangri La for brown people:
Republican leaders have endorsed an immigration-platform plank for next week's GOP convention that supports Arizona-style laws aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration. The move likely will appeal to conservatives but could alienate Hispanics at a time when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is trying to woo Latino voters. Arizona Republic
President Obama supports the DREAM Act and, in lieu of being able to pass that sensible piece of legislation, he recently signed an executive order establishing a
deferred deportation program, a policy most sane, informed, and caring human beings support. The GOP's tactic to attract Hispanic voters, on the other hand, is to denounce the President's executive order and hold up Arizona as their model! What's next? Maybe they can get recalled Senator Russell Pearce, chief defender of SB 1070, or Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the symbol of Latino bigotry, to give a keynote presentation in Tampa. Better yet: invite Joe the Plumber to reprise the
"build fences and start shooting" nonsense that he introduced here in Prescott last week.
"It's really hard to get people to vote for you when you are telling their loved ones they should get out," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, an immigration-advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
Duh.
According to The Hill, the tough, anti-immigrant BS in the GOP platform was not in the original document, which pretty much followed the party's 2008 version on this issue. The new Arizona-style language was inserted Tuesday at the urging of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. We know this racist dingleberry very well in Arizona; along with ALEC and Russell Pearce, he's the principal author of SB 1070, which Mitt Romney hailed as "a model" for the nation. While most of the "papers please" law was struck down by the Supremes in June, the provision that requires law officials to determine someone's citizenship status if there's suspicion they're here illegally, remains on the books, although it's being challenged again as I write.
And the official GOP platform gets even better for Hispanic families, especially if they hope to send their children to school:
At Kobach's urging, the GOP's immigration plank also instructs the federal government to withhold funding to universities that allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition and "sanctuary cities" that refuse to enforce immigration laws...
Even Republican Latinos in Arizona are turned off by the hard lurch to the right on immigration, especially since
studies show that border crossings and crime are down considerably in the last two years. Like voter fraud, the GOP is enacting discriminatory policies to solve a "problem" that doesn't exist.
Scottsdale resident DeeDee Garcia Blase, founder of the Republican Latino group Somos Republicans, said many Latino Republicans are turned off by the anti-immigrant stance of many Republicans in Arizona and elsewhere. Garcia Blase, an Air Force veteran, said she was drawn to the party because she supports a strong national defense. But a year ago, she left the party and became an independent after 20 years because she "couldn't stomach" laws like SB 1070.
"Obviously, more and more Hispanics are jumping ship," she said.
Welcome aboard the USS Obama.