Mitt Romney attacked Newt Gingrich for embracing 'amnesty' at the Nov. 22 CNN debate
(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Remember how
Republican pundits declared that Newt Gingrich had inflicted major damage to his campaign because he dared to embrace what both Michele Bachmann and Romney described as "amnesty" during CNN's November 22 Republican primary debate?
Well, ABC and Washington Post asked Iowa Republicans which candidate they thought would do the best job handling immigration issues. Their answer?
Regardless of who you may support, which of the Republican candidates do you trust most to handle immigration?
Gingrich: 27
Perry: 18
Paul: 13
Romney: 8
Bachmann: 7
Santorum: 3
Huntsman: 3
If you'd listened to Romney apologists, Gingrich all but destroyed his campaign when he uttered these words opposing the deportation of long-term immigrants who crossed the border illegally:
I do not believe that the people of the United States are going to take people who have been here a quarter century, who have children and grandchildren, who are members of the community, who may have done something 25 years ago, separate them from their families, and expel them.
Mitt Romney immediately smelled blood. During the debate, he slammed Gingrich's position as "amnesty" and after the debate instructed his campaign operatives to unload on Gingrich.
Presumably, Romney and his campaign assumed that most Republicans hate brown people so much that they would support deporting otherwise law-abiding immigrants who came here illegally years ago. I suspect Romney and his staff knew in their heart that such a policy is inhumane, but Romney's running for office for Pete's sake, and why should doing the right thing get in the way of pursuing political gain?
But as calculated and cowardly as Romney's attack may have been, it turns out that he also miscalculated. And not only do more than three times as many Iowa Republicans trust Gingrich on immigration (as we saw in the ABC/Washington Post poll above), PPP's latest Iowa poll shows that a plurality of them actually share Gingrich's position on deportation.
Do you think people who have immigrated to the United States illegally but have lived here 25 years, have paid taxes, and have obeyed the law should be deported or not?
They should be deported: 29
They should not: 44
Not sure: 27
Obviously, there's an awful lot of neanderthals among Iowa Republicans. Even though it's a minority, 29% is a staggering and disturbing level of support for a policy which could only be pursued by putting in place the equivalent of pogroms. Nonetheless, much to Mitt Romney's chagrin, a plurality of Iowa Republicans don't share that bigoted position.
There's obviously a lot more to immigration policy than the issue that Romney and Gingrich battled over, and it's not like Gingrich has the world's greatest position on it. (For example, he opposes a path to citizenship for long-term immigrants who came here illegally.)
But it's important to recognize that even among Republicans, Mitt Romney's decision to side with the neanderthal extreme backfired. As you'll see later today when we release national results on the same question, Republicans across the nation are even more strongly opposed to Romney's stance than they were in Iowa. That's actually good news for America: unlike Mitt Romney, most Republicans think immigrants should be treated like human beings.
9:09 AM PT: Another data point from the ABC/WaPo poll: 38% of likely GOP caucus-goers say Gingrich's position on immigration is a major reason to support. Just 15% say it's a major reason to oppose.