CLICK HERE for a truly amazing article. NO it is NOT from The Onion. It is not from a left-wing blog or an alternative newspaper. And YES it does involve a major candidate. With the Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s immigration law you’d think the the Romney camp would a)have an official statement (they did) b)have several pages of material to respond to other questions (they apparently don’t or aren’t using it) c)would have the good sense not to appear to be evading questions on immigration or the ruling (which will keep the issue of Romney and his position very much alive and give ammunition to Democrats in winning the Latino vote).
Being prepared with lots of material beyond one statement to lay an issue to rest is far better than repeating the same phrase over and over. Which will keep the questioning alive.
Mitt Romney released a statement earlier today emphasizing the right of states to enact immigration policies, but not actually commenting directly on the substance of today’s Supreme Court decision on the Arizona immigration law. Reporters sought to get more clarity from the campaign in a Q&A with traveling spokesman Rick Gorka, but to little avail. POLITICO’s Ginger Gibson sends a transcript of the lengthy exchange [NOTE: this is a rush transcript, some of the questions are slightly condensed, answers are verbatim]:
Go the link and read it. It’s like a taped loop response.
Clearly, Team Romney is hoping this issue will be obscured soon by the Supreme Court’s health care ruling, which even Polyanna would be saying right now:“They’re going to part or many parts of the law down, you just wait and see!”
The problem: that the Supreme Court’s nixing of part or all of the health care law would indeed shift the debate — for a while. But the issue of immigration is not going to go away and Romney needs to pick up at least some more Latino votes.
On the other hand maybe he won’t need as many as people think. Political Wire has this as their Quote of the Day:
“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation — abortion facility regulations — in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”
— Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R), quoted by Politics PA, citing a voter ID law as an accomplishment which critics claim was never about preventing fraud.
UPDATE:
This MSNBC segment with the interview exchange is now on You Tube (it is NOT a parody):
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.