My Examiner colleague Byron York asks, “Will immigration cripple Rick Perry’s bid?”
No. No it won’t.
Byron does identify some immigration issues that may trouble most Republican primary voters (against E-Verify, against a border fence, and for a guest worker program). But Perry simply does not have any opponents positioned to steal votes from him on the issue.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is fading fast and unless she morphs into a Rep. Steve King-like, R-Iowa, all-immigration-all-the-time candidiate I just don’t see Perry losing many voters to her on the issue.
And I don’t know anyone who considers themselves a hawk on immigration who trusts Mitt Romney on immigration for a second. Remember, Romney told The Boston Globe in 2005 that he thought Sen. John McCain’s amnesty plan was “reasonable.” Yes, Romney has evolved on the issue since then, but no one who cares about the illegal immigration issue beleives Romney has the commitment to follow through.
I do think Perry needs to make more of an effort differentiating what Byron calls “the Texas Dream Act” from the Dream Act that Democrats pushed last year at the national level. Perry’s bill did allow illegal immigrants to qualify for in state tuition at Texas higher education institutions, but it did not grant amnesty to anybody the way DC Democrat’s Dream Act bill does.
