Of the top Republican prospects for 2012, Gingrich leads in Latino outreach

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53579.html


Newt Gingrich has come a long way since criticizing Latinos a few years ago for continuing to speak “the language of living in a ghetto.” He’s taking Spanish lessons, reaching out to Hispanic community leaders, and supports “finding a way for residency” for some illegal immigrants.

But mounting a successful presidential bid means winning over GOP primary activists — many of whom favor a hard-line immigration crackdown — and that means Gingrich’s moderate positions could spell big trouble for him in the early-voting states, strategists say.

Of the top Republican prospects for 2012, Gingrich leads in Latino outreach.

He recently attended a Texas conference on strengthening Latino and Jewish dialogue, and regularly publishes op-eds in Spanish. On a Tax Day conference call with tea party activists earlier this month, Gingrich called on Republicans to fight the “anti-Hispanic” label.

“We need to reach out to everybody who wants to work hard, everybody who wants to earn a living, everybody who believes in the classic traditional values,” he said. “And certainly that’s much of the Hispanic American community.”

Gingrich launched “The Americano,” a bilingual news website for Latino conservatives, and in December hosted a two-day forum featuring prominent Latino politicians, religious figures and business leaders. There he declared, “We are not going to deport 11 million people. There has to be some zone between deportation and amnesty.”

And in February he sparred with Howard Dean over the DREAM Act. “Residency is very different than citizenship,” Gingrich stressed, proposing that it should be available to people who serve in the military or entered the country as children.

Dean praised his stance as reasonable, joking, “That’s the kiss of death, that’s not going to help you in Iowa.” Gingrich quickly responded, “No, I think it does actually help — everywhere.”

The immigration-reduction group NumbersUSA, which waged war on John McCain in 2008, has already set its sights on Gingrich. The group, which advocates stricter controls on both legal and illegal immigration, has given his immigration agenda a D- grade — the worst of its ranking of the GOP presidential contenders.

“In last several months, he’s kind of gone back to being bad — as bad as he was when he was in Congress,” said the group’s executive director Roy Beck.

Though then-House Speaker Gingrich backed tougher immigration enforcement, he was also instrumental in passing legislation that allowed hundreds of thousands of Central American refugees become legal permanent residents of the United States.
Other 2012 Republican candidates haven’t gone as far as Gingrich.

Tim Pawlenty has pushed for the increased use of E-Verify, an Internet-based system that allows businesses to determine if their employees are eligible to work. Haley Barbour, when confronted about his lobbying firm’s promotion of a path to citizenship for Mexican illegal immigrants, denied his own involvement. Mike Huckabee has said there’s zero chance of passing comprehensive immigration reform that includes such a citizenship pathway. Michele Bachmann told an Iowa audience that she whole-heartedly agrees with Republican Rep. Steve King, an immigration hard-line. And Mitch Daniels recently said he expects Indiana’s immigration bill to focus more on employers than law enforcement.

Eventually McCain retreated from using the word “comprehensive” and began trumpeting a border-security-first approach on the campaign trail. And his Hispanic outreach director, Juan Hernandez, found himself sidelined. A TV spot on undocumented immigrants fighting the nation’s wars never aired, and Hispanics recruited to appear with McCain at events never made it to the podium, Hernandez told POLITICO.

“On one hand it was, ‘We have to win the primary. We have to win the primary first. Let’s wait. Let’s wait’” to talk about immigration and Hispanic outreach, Hernandez said. “But then it was too late. You already told Hispanics not that you’re not wanted, but you’re not as important as we claimed you to have been.”

Of all the potential 2012 candidates, it’s Gingrich who has been floating new ideas, such as tasking credit card companies with creating guest worker ID cards that track workers' legal status with a simple swipe.

“He’s doing something very smart — he’s doing it early,” said Ana Navarro, who served as national co-chair of McCain's Hispanic Advisory Council. “All of these guys need to understand you can’t show up and ask for the Hispanic vote three months before [the general] election. It’s got to start now.”

Lionel Sosa, who has consulted seven Republican presidential campaigns on Hispanic issues, praised Gingrich for being “upfront” on immigration.

“He is far and away the most attractive Republican candidate for Latinos,” Sosa said. “He is thoughtful. He has looked into the issue. He understands it, and he feels there is a way to solve the problem.”

But Gingrich’s views won’t help him with the tea party, which is expected to be influential in some of the early states.

The largest coalition of tea party advocates, Tea Party Patriots, recently chose Arizona as the site of its first policy conference in a show of support for the state’s crackdown on illegal immigrants. And many activists are dead set against allowing illegals to have any type of a legal status in the U.S.

“The tea party really values the rule of law and the constitution,” said tea party activist Jamie Radtke, who is running for Virginia’s open Senate seat. “They don’t want to reward breaking the law.”

Aides to Gingrich are hoping what they describe as the former Speaker’s nuanced views on the issue will aid his presidential bid.

He’s advocated a multi-step approach that first addresses border security problems and employers hiring illegal workers. And he has been quick to recognize the complexities of deporting people who are married with children, or a student who, say, was smuggled over the border at age 3, but has since graduated from a Texas high school and doesn’t speak Spanish.

Yet that hasn’t stopped right-wing bloggers and talk radio from tearing Gingrich apart, claiming that he has backed amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegals.

“Newt has never laid a pathway to citizenship and he has not offered a definitive policy on legality either,” said his spokesman Rick Tyler, who also noted that Gingrich plans to focus on economic issues, not immigration, during the primary contests.

Hispanic groups are banking that Gingrich will stand behind his principles and not pander to his party’s conservative base during the primary season.

“He’s not following the McCain approach. He’s very courageous,” said Alfonso Aguilar, the executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles.

When his “ghetto” comment sparked a firestorm in 2007, Gingrich made amends with a three-minute apology on YouTube — in Spanish. It’s that kind of respect that’s enabled him to make inroads among Latinos since his days in public office, said Leslie Sanchez, a Republican strategist who worked with Gingrich during his time in Congress.

“He’s done it with a very thoughtful approach, at time where there has been very little consistency on the Republican side,” she said.

you want latino votes Gingrich ? get us 60 and 218 simple as that nothing more nothing less.

So Gingrich is for CIR/DA, awesome.

Doesn't help our cause one bit. The senators call the shots.

Atleast we won't veto it if he was president.

*my foot in your mouth*

Gingrich can be very bad news for Obama.
Hispanic voters need to send a message to democrats. EMPTY PROMISES have consequences.

I thought the same thing when I heard his stance on immigration reform. I live in Georgia and it's been all over the news that he may be running for president since at least February.

Gingrich is the worst hypocrite politician out there.IF you remember he was the leader in the house and he would crucify senator for having extra marital affairs. He then would talk about how all this activity was against God. While the whole time he was screwing DC hookers until he got caught. I don't trust a word that comes out of his mouth.

Let'[s replace Obama with Governor. Dean