GOP wary of Romney’s rhetoric on immigrants

By Peter Wallsten,
WashPost
Published: December 16

Republicans are increasingly worried that their party’s efforts to win a competitive slice of the fast-growing Hispanic vote in important presidential battleground states are being undermined by Mitt Romney’s heated rhetoric on illegal immigration.

Several leading GOP strategists say Romney’s sharp-tongued attacks have gained wide attention in Hispanic media and are eroding the party’s already fragile standing in that community.

The leaders of one Republican-leaning group, the Hispanic Leadership Fund, are so upset with Romney that if he wins the nomination, they might withhold an endorsement and curtail plans for an extensive voter-contact campaign in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Florida to bolster the GOP presidential ticket.

Several Republican groups have spent the past three years trying to repair damage from the 2008 campaign, when GOP nominee John McCain won just 31 percent of the Hispanic vote after a bruising primary season in which he was forced to back off his support for a plan that would have put many illegal immigrants on a path to legalization.

(More here.)