Romney will not only be the first non-Protestant nominated and the first Mormon, but he will also be the first Hispanic nominated president, something few people are taking note of.
After the hoopla over President Barack Obama being the first Afro-American to earn the Democratic nomination, the fact that Romney is half Hispanic has been kept under the radar by the media as a campaign issue.
The Obama campaign has wasted no time in trying to portray Romney as the most extreme candidate on the issue of immigration. In the days since Romney’s DREAM Act statement, a slew of Latino Democrats has fanned out to rip Romney. After all, there’s a lot at stake here: Latinos are the nation’s fastest-growing voting bloc, with an estimated 12.2 million set to vote in this year’s general election, according to a projection by the National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials (NALEO).
“It really demonstrates how far he is from understanding the issue,” said Rep. Charlie Gonzalez of Texas, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, on a conference call with reporters last week. “I understand that in that particular field one will try to out-pander another, but you still have to be responsible.”
“How do you paint yourself into such a corner on immigration where you can’t walk back from that statement?” he asked.
On primary night in New Hampshire I sat down with Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., who emphasized that Democrats are going to remind Latino voters time and time again about Romney’s immigration stance.
“It appears that the Republicans are so committed to moving to the far right to win the tea party vote that they have forgotten about the rest of American voters – the independents, the Latinos,” Becerra told me in Manchester. “It appears that they have said that at this moment what matters to them is the tea party because they want to be the nominee. And because of that we are hearing people like Mitt Romney who says whatever he needs to to win. But unfortunately for him there is a record, there are facts – and the facts are the things that are going to be used to judge who is the real Mitt Romney.”
“He’s already said to our immigrant children who perform military service or who go to college – go away. The DREAM Act, that bill to give those students an opportunity to move forward here? No. To immigrant families? Split them up,” Becerra added.
Now that he appears well on his way to winning the GOP primary, Romney has tried to court Latino voters. In New Hampshire last Sunday, Romney mentioned that his father, George, was born in Mexico and came to the United States at age five. On Wednesday he took to the airwaves in Florida with a new Spanish-language ad entitled “Nosotros,” meaning “us.” The Republican National Committee got in on the act, too, announcing a beefed-up outreach effort to Hispanic voters.
But it may be too little, too late. Even before his DREAM Act comments, Romney faced an uphill battle with Latinos. A poll conducted by Latino Decisions for Univision in November found that among registered Hispanic voters in the 21 most Hispanic-heavy states, Obama held a whopping 67 percent to 24 percent lead over Romney.
While Romney could make up some ground among Latinos by selecting someone like Cuban-American Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as his eventual running mate, the GOP may have missed a golden opportunity to swing the 2012 election by earning the backing of Latino voters.
In my stops along the campaign trail in recent months, I have encountered numerous Latinos disillusioned with President Obama’s inaction on comprehensive immigration reform measures. In Las Vegas last November, I talked to a single mother of two named Ana who said she voted for Obama in 2008, but won’t do so again in 2012, no matter who the GOP nominates.
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