Last night’s debate hosted by CNN saw Rick Santorum walk on to the stage with all the momentum behind him, Mitt Romney with all the money behind him and the other two are just that the other two. The debate was held at Arizona’s Mesa Art Center in the home state of SB 1070, strong anti-immigrant sentiment and home to 370 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border – yet this was not enough for the politics of immigration to be the focus.
As always the debate mirrors the topics defining the candidates before they come onto the debate stage and this time the topic was vaginal management: birth control, abstinence, defunding Planning Parenthood, etc… . After 15 minutes of the all-white male panel talking about managing my privates I prayed that the immigration issue would surface but quick.
Leave it to desperado Gingrich to pander to the anti-immigrant sentiment of the state as soon as he could, I’m surprise he didn’t bring up the issue while everyone was singing the National Anthem. He was somewhat demur on the vaginal management issue since he has had some of his own issues with his own privates and abstinence.
When the panel was discussing debt reduction he was the first and only candidate to tie the issue of border control to the debt in terms of what states spend in emergency rooms. Huh? To the cheers of the audience he noted the ‘broken’ border as a ‘failure of will’ and asked everyone to ‘imagine a President [like himself] that works with your Governor [Brewer]’.
Newt - not only was the applause not loud enough to get you out of fourth place, your banter like your campaign is now negligible.
I assumed the immigration topic was going to be front and center when I spotted Texas Governor Rick Perry, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and Governor Jan Brewer in the audience – a near perfect fear-mongering trifecta. Therefore I was surprised to see the immigration discussion rather muted maybe Marco Rubio’s call for a more moderate rhetoric on immigration resonated or more likely vaginal politics had worn everyone out.
Either way there was no strong call for deportation in spite of Arpaio’s urging: “It’s political garbage not to arrest illegals already in the country.” No one took the bait. And Santorum wouldn’t go as far as to mandate E-Verify for the millions of households hiring undocumented housekeepers and nannies. Meanwhile Governor Romney focused on businesses using the E-Verify system for their workforce. Romney also assured the audience that on his first day as President he would withdraw the lawsuits against state’s immigration laws.
Gingrich reminded us that he will have the border fence completed by January 1, 2014 regardless of the $3 million/mile estimated cost. He claimed credit for building the Tijuana-San Diego portion of the border fence while Speaker.
Jesus Christ, is there something he didn’t do while being Speaker? Oh, that’s right the only thing he didn’t do was keep his mouth, ego and ethics in check.
The take away from these candidates on immigration is that the undocumented and to some extent all immigrants are takers and more of a burden then a positive to the nation.
Another take away this one from Romney was secure the border otherwise we might see Iran-sponsored nuclear weapons rolling across the Rio Grande. Well this is Arizona remember! The promotion of fear has been mastered here to an art form.
Another take away is that vaginal politics and anything to do with things below and under your belt take away from the real issues like the economy, jobs and immigration reform.
The final and most important take away from this debate is that the Latino vote from Arizona will be decidedly non-Republican and will be going to President Barrack Obama. I bet my as-of-now-unregulated-ovaries on it.
