On Air and Before Audiences, Romney Makes Push for Hispanic Vote

NEW YORK TIMES  

By Michael Barbaro

September 19, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/us/politics/in-ads-and-before-audiences-romney-bids-for-latino-vote.html

Mitt Romney, hunting for an electoral edge in swing states, is intensifying his push for Hispanic voters, ratcheting up his Spanish-language advertising, deploying a Spanish-speaking son to court Latino leaders and putting himself in front of a growing number of Hispanic audiences.

It is an uphill climb, with polls showing that President Obama holds a commanding lead among Latino voters, just as he did four years ago. But as Mr. Romney tries to build political momentum in the dwindling weeks of the campaign, aides said they viewed Hispanics, whose unemployment numbers remain higher than that of the general population, as a potentially decisive constituency in states like Florida, Nevada, Colorado and Virginia.

On Wednesday, Mr. Romney brought his conspicuous outreach to Miami, where he participated in a candidate forum hosted by Univision, the dominant Spanish-language television network in the country, and attended a late night “Juntos con Romney” (“Together With Romney”) rally.

Greeting the forum’s hosts briefly in Spanish, Mr. Romney expressed alarm over the economic struggles of Hispanic Americans and portrayed Mr. Obama as having failed to improve their circumstances.

"“I am concerned about the fact that we have gone for over 50 months with unemployment above 10 percent among Hispanic Americans," Mr. Romney said. "“I am concerned about the fact that so many young Hispanic Americans drop out of high school, don'’t get the kind of education they need for the skills that they have to have for tomorrow.”"

Some of his most intriguing remarks, though, were not about Hispanics, but about gay and lesbian couples. In response to a question, he said that they should be able to “raise a family as they would choose.” In the past, he has sought to avoid discussing issues like adoption by gay parents, which many social and religious conservatives oppose.

Asked what advice he would give his children and grandchildren if they were gay and wished to marry, Mr. Romney replied: “"Well, my kids are all married, so I’'d be surprised,"” before reiterating that he believes that marriage should be reserved for heterosexual couples.

Mr. Romney'’s brutal primary campaign at times put him at odds with quarters of the Hispanic community, a fact that the hosts of the Univision forum did not shy from. They posed pointed questions about illegal immigrants and whether the Spanish language has a place in American life. ("“Spanish,”" Mr. Romney said, quoting a friend, "“is the language of our heritage. English is the language of opportunity."”)

Despite repeated inquiries, Mr. Romney avoided saying whether he would continue a program to suspend deportations of young illegal immigrants announced in June by Mr. Obama. Instead he accused the president of using immigration as a “political football,” and he returned to a promise to “put in place a permanent solution” to illegal immigration.

Pressed for details, Mr. Romney said again that he would support giving legal permanent residence to illegal immigrants who serve in the military. But he also suggested he would support another big piece of a bill in Congress known as the Dream Act. "“Kids that get higher education could get permanent residence,”" Mr. Romney said, in what appeared to be another step away from his position during the nominating contests, when he said he opposed the Dream Act.

Mr. Romney rejected mass deportation of illegal immigrants, but he sidestepped a question about whether he still supported encouraging “self-deportation” — encouraging such immigrants to leave the country by strictly enforcing immigration rules, a position he has advocated before.

“"We are not going to round up people around the country and deport them,”" he said. "Our system is not to deport people.”"

Aides to Mr. Romney said that they are devoting significant resources to the Hispanic vote. They have quietly built up a sizable staff of operatives around the country, including 13 paid workers in Florida alone, a state with a large and politically engaged population of Hispanics.

After lagging well behind Mr. Obama in spending on Spanish-language advertising for months, Mr. Romney has started to catch up in a few markets like Miami. Between mid-April and mid-September, Mr. Romney and the Republican National Committee spent $1.8 million on such ads in the Miami area, just a hair below what Mr. Obama spent during that period, according to Kantar Media, which tracks television advertising nationwide.

Still, Mr. Obama has significantly outgunned Mr. Romney nationally, devoting nearly twice as much money on Spanish-language commercials.

Alberto Martinez, an adviser, said the Romney campaign was organizing “the most aggressive Hispanic outreach of any Republican presidential campaign.”

“We are playing in a lot more states than many Republican presidential candidates have done,” he said.

But a national poll of likely voters, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that 72 percent of Hispanics intended to support Mr. Obama, compared with 22 percent for Mr. Romney.

Mr. Romney has acknowledged that disadvantage. But during a rally on Wednesday night in Miami, surrounded by Spanish signs and introduced by his son Craig in Spanish, he argued that the Republican Party had earned the affections of Hispanic voters.

“This party,” he said, “is the natural home for Hispanic-Americans.”