With his flip-flopping on Latinos, Newt is a chameleon
SAN DIEGO -- No mas, Newt!
After two decades of watching the former House speaker wrestle clumsily with Latino outreach, I can't take any more flip-flopping.
Newt Gingrich cannot seem to make up his mind about whether Republicans get more benefit from approaching America's largest minority with an open palm -- or a clenched fist.
Judging by a recent appearance on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" -- which is must-see TV for nativists -- Gingrich is gambling on the fist these days.
Gingrich said that Democrats are trying to make it legal for non-citizens to vote and that this is why they're soft on illegal immigration.
It's a fine theory -- except that illegal immigrants don't seem all that eager to vote when the choices are between "bad" and "worse," and Democrats are often harder on illegal immigration than Republicans. Compare Democrat Bill "The Hammer" Clinton with Republican George W. "Open-Borders" Bush.
Undeterred by fact, Gingrich told Carlson that Democrats can't win the votes of "law-abiding Americans."
By "law-abiding Americans," we can assume that Gingrich is not talking about former Trump campaign advisers or ex-Arizona lawmen who defy federal judges.
Gingrich also took a jab at fellow Republicans for not pushing for tough immigration laws, including a crackdown on those mythical "sanctuary cities" that don't actually offer much sanctuary. Republicans "lose their nerve," he said, because the liberal media "smears" them by calling them "xenophobic" and "anti-foreigner."
I've written about Gingrich and Latinos since the second term of the Clinton administration, when the former assistant professor at West Georgia College (now the University of West Georgia) was the leader of the opposition.
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