Immigration a problem for Romney?

The case for that is made below but I think his stance is fairly mainstream. There is even a significant minority of Hispanics who want better control. And a lot of Hispanics don't vote

Experts say Republican's hard stance during primary may hurt him against Obama in general election

With an Iowa win in hand and a double-digit lead in New Hampshire, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is on his way to secure the GOP presidential nomination. Sure, he's still got rivals, but the well-funded, disciplined, and organized Romney has the clearest path to the general election.

The question facing Democratic and Republican strategists alike is how gracefully Romney can perform the age-old pirouette from party primary, where one must pander to the base, to the general election, where one must pander to the center.

Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz took aim at Romney even before Hawkeye state voters caucused on Tuesday night, seeking to highlight the Republican's vulnerabilities to reporters at an Iowa press conference.

"He is leaving Iowa with significant primary baggage that will weigh him down in the general election," she said, according to her prepared statement. She knocked Romney for saying he would not have bailed out the auto industry with federal money and that he would also keep the federal government out of the foreclosure process and instead allow it to "hit bottom."

"Mitt Romney also repackaged the same policies that led to the economic crisis and called it an economic plan," she said. "That includes cutting taxes for the wealthy and big corporations and making the middle class foot the bill, and letting Wall Street write their own rules and do whatever it can to make money--regardless of the impact on the middle class."

And while there's no doubt that "the economy" is on the top of voters minds, Romney's commitment to the free market over government intervention may not offend the disaffected independent voters who supported Obama in 2008 but are now looking for a change.

But experts do point to one issue where a position Romney took in the GOP primary may hurt him in the general election, and that's immigration. The former governor took one of the most conservative positions of any of the Republican candidates when he said all immigrants currently in the United States illegally--estimated to total more than 10 million--should have to return to their home countries before applying for U.S. citizenship. He called a proposal offered by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to allow immigrants with deep ties to their U.S. communities to stay, while deporting "undesirables," tantamount to amnesty.

In a November GOP debate, Romney said, "Amnesty is a magnet. People respond to incentives, and if you could become a permanent resident of the United States by coming here illegally, you'll do so."

As with many issues, Romney's stance on immigration during this election seems to differ from positions he's taken in the past. In 2006, while governor, Romney had said, "I don't believe in rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at gunpoint from our country." But his campaign maintains the position is consistent--that Romney believes illegal immigrants should return home before starting down the path to U.S. citizenship.

So why might this haunt Romney in the general election?

"A Republican probably can't win without about 40 percent, minimum, of the Hispanic and Latino vote," says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics and a well-respected election prognosticator. Sabato adds that the 2008 GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, tallied only about 31 percent support from this voting bloc in his loss to Obama.

The Latino vote is also not inconsequential because of the growing Hispanic population in a number of swing states, including Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico.

William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former policy adviser to President Clinton, also identifies Romney's hard immigration stance as a potential problem for his campaign in the general election.

"I understand why Romney did it, for primary purposes, but that's the one big thing that he's done that could come back to bite him," he says.

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Britons anxious over immigration

British people welcome the cultural changes brought about by immigration but are in a state of "deep economic anxiety" as they believe it has had a negative impact on the supply of housing, jobs, schools and hospitals, according to a poll.

The study by The Observer found modern Britain to be hopeful and at ease with itself but also worried about the bleak economic outlook and its consequences.

Other concerns that emerged included a perception of worsening crime rates being heavily blamed on an influx of immigrants in recent decades.

The results revealed that while British people are less positive about immigrants in relation to the economy, they welcome cultural changes brought about by immigration, with people believing it has positively contributed to entrepreneurship, film, music, fashion and design.

There was overwhelming agreement across the country that immigration has been good for domestic cuisine, with 68% saying that it has been changed for the better.

The poll found three out of five Britons now thought former Tory minister Norman Tebbit's "cricket test", proposed in 1990, in which the loyalty of immigrants is judged by which national sports teams they support, is outdated. Fifteen per cent believe it is important for immigrants to support home teams over their countries of origin, while 50% of people believe the children of immigrants born in the UK should be free to support the teams of their parents' country of birth.

Around half of people questioned believe the government should encourage parents to put their children in ethnically diverse schools, with black and Asian people feeling this most strongly (60%), but the report points out that the "large white majority don't lag far behind"(51%).

The report also found that British people regard rising prices as the biggest threat to the country's well-being in 2012 and believe the Queen's Jubilee celebrations will lift the nation's spirits more than the Olympics.

The findings touch on the class system in modern Britain, attitudes towards Scottish independence and changes in the country since it last held the Olympic games in 1948. There is strong Scottish national pride, but Scots are as keen to stay in the Union as the English and Welsh are to keep them while it turns out to be the Geordies, not the Scots or Welsh, who feel least British.

A striking north-south divide emerges over whether class has become less important in Britain since 1948, with over 40% of Londoners confident that class matters less in comparison to 29% who disagree, and in the north 35% think it matters less compared to 41% who disagree.

SOURCE