December 10, 2007
Univision Debate Postmortem: The Six Amigos (Plus Ron Paul)
So, our liveblog effort was a bust thanks to my lack of high-tech closed-captioning, but it doesn't look as if we missed a whole lot in the way of fireworks. Because the immigration debate has been alienating Latino voters, it was in everyone's interest last night to promote Brand GOP (as opposed to Brand Me). Most of the seven candidates present did that, but at the expense of specifics.
In other words, this was a very broad-strokes debate. The Republican candidates have been vying for months to prove just how tough they can be on closing the borders, etc., which is sort of mandatory, as they're trying to win over mostly white, conservative base voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. Then they found themselves in Miami last night before a sea of Latino Americans -- the fastest-growing bloc of voters in the nation. In order to hew to what they'd been saying about immigration reform up until last night, some of which may not have gone over well in this crowd, they had to fiddle with their rhetoric.
That translated to lots of talk of freedom and no trading barbs on sanctuary cities or sanctuary mansions. The central mission was to not tick anyone off, and on that score they probably succeeded.
Most of the candidates stuck to platitudes about the greatness that is America and why it's such a magnet for foreigners. (Even Duncan Hunter toned it down.) While the word "amnesty" did pop up, it was never used to attack a rival. The result was that the forum looked a lot like the ones the much more unified Democratic field has been having.
We did detect one shift of note, however. Back in September, when he was still an obscure, long-shot candidate, Mike Huckabee appeared before a black voters forum that all the front-runners at the time (Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson) skipped. After gladly scolding his rivals for ignoring black voters, Huckabee went on to sound themes of compassionate conservatism that veered dangerously close, we noted, to the Democratic Party.
Huckabee has since vaulted to the front of the pack, in part because of his likability and charm. To stay there, however, he will have to sharpen his edges. Romney was among the first to accuse Huckabee of being a little too compassionate with illegal immigrants. In response, Huckabee unveiled a tough-seeming nine-point immigration and border enforcement plan last week. Yesterday, his campaign went up with its first ad to focus solely on illegal immigration.
Lucky for him, most of the Univision debate's audience probably had no idea who he was back in September. So any shift went undetected, as he joined most of his rivals in trying to persuade the audience that cracking down on illegal immigrants was necessary to keep legal immigration possible in the future.
We were hoping last week that Univision's moderators would ask the candidates to respond to this scare ad from Tom Tancredo, who boycotted the Spanish-language forum. No such luck. But the debate did prove that the combination of Ron Paul and Hugo Chavez makes for a muy caliente cocktail.
"He's not the easiest person to deal with, but we should deal with everybody around the world the same way: with friendship and opportunity to talk and try to trade with people," said the Texas libertarian congressman, who was immediately greeted with deafening boos. Digging himself in even further, Paul continued, "We talked to Stalin, we talked to Khrushchev, we've talked to Mao..."
¡Dios mio! Considering the history of brutal totalitarian dictatorships in Latin America, this was definitely the wrong audience for Paul's ultra-relativist approach to foreign diplomacy. And then: "Actually, I believe we're at a time where we even ought to talk to Cuba and trade and travel to Cuba...."
No, señor. No. Lots and lots of booing here.
Romney goes up with an ad attacking Huckabee on immigration tomorrow, Horserace reports. The Miami Herald's writeup is here. Jim Geraghty was also not pleased that the debate broadcast was so unfriendly to non-Spanish speakers. Mark Krikorian of NRO posted his takeaways here, while Hot Air had some fun at Geraldo Rivera's expense.
Photo Illustrations: Reuben Dalke
Posted at 7:36 PM
Posted to:
Campaigns, Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, Immigration, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Tancredo, WH 2008
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