Mitt Romney asked semi-tough questions on immigration

There are 3.5 candidates for president who support our immigration laws: Hunter, Tancredo, and Paul. The half-point is Mitt Romney, who has links to Bush and who may end up being as bad or nearly as bad as he is, or who might decide to do what's in America's best interests.

Speaking about 20 miles from Marshalltown Iowa, he was asked about his position on immigration. Whatever the exact question, it was much too broad, and such broad questions result in broad answers. What people need to do is a) find a quote or position from the candidate, b) find a flaw in that position, c) develop a short question about the specific position, and d) ask the question prefacing it with a brief version of the original quote. Because if you don't do that, you get something like this:

"I love immigration. I love legal immigrants coming into our country... My guess is everybody in this room is a descendant of an immigrant or an immigrant himself. So we love immigration as Americans. Immigration brings us education, new cultures, ideas, innovative talent. It's wonderful to have legal immigration. I don't like illegal immigration."

This is dangerously Bush-like blather, and Bush said he didn't like illegal immigration too, way back in 2000. We can see what happened.

But, at least there was a follow-up of sorts:

The man who questioned Romney specifically asked whether Romney supported construction of a fence along the southern U.S. border. Romney replied that it is important to "secure" the border. "Make sure that we have a clear, defined border between ourselves and places that want to bring people in illegally," Romney said. "...That's not enough, just securing the border. In my opinion, we need to do one thing more, at least, and that is to have an employment verification system." ...Romney envisions a tamper-proof I.D. card that would let businesses know whether the person is in the country legally.

It's still not entirely clear what exactly he supports. He went on to argue for skilled rather than massive amounts of unskilled immigration. And, he didn't discuss whether he favors amnesty or not.

Someone needs to ask him more specific questions designed to reveal possible flaws in his positions.

Immigration2007a · Fri, 02/09/2007 - 04:57 · · Importance: 1