Running for President -- of Flip-Floppers

Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are not only competing to see who takes the hardest line on immigration, but who can be the biggest hypocrite.

The two leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination are trying so hard to please the GOP's immigration-obsessed conservatives that they are denying they were both immigrant-friendly as mayor of New York City (Giuliani) and governor of Massachusetts (Romney).

In 2006, both Giuliani and Romney spoke favorably about a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would have given illegal immigrants a path to U.S. citizenship. But now that they are running for president, they are trying to remake themselves as immigration hardliners, thrashing similar legislation that went before Congress this year.

During the past few weeks, they both have been talking tough about illegal immigration, spewing a lot of cheap rhetoric without offering reasonable solutions for what do about the 12 million undocumented immigrants who are living here already.

When Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., praised Sen. John McCain's courage for confronting such a tough issue and criticized Giuliani and Romney for failing to come up with a way to fix the nation's broken immigration system, he took a beating from conservatives. They argued that as chairman of the Republican National Committee, Martinez had no right to take sides.

But Martinez obviously was looking beyond the GOP primaries and realizing that some of the leading Republican candidates are undermining the party's chances of winning the general election.

As a Latino, Martinez knows many of his fellow Republicans are alienating many of his fellow Latinos and other immigrants, and he knows that without a good chunk of the Hispanic vote, Republicans are destined to lose the White House.

"Presidential contests are about leadership," Martinez said. "It's about leading on the tough issues."

He is right. By flip-flopping on such an important issue, Giuliani and Romney are showing that they lack the fortitude and leadership qualities to be president.

As much as they try to run away from their records of compassion for illegal immigrants, they can't do it — not when there is ample evidence they have become immigration hardliners because it is politically expedient — at least before the GOP primaries.

If one of them gets the Republican nomination, surely we will see that nominee flip back to a much more moderate mode — although it probably will be too late to win support from pro-immigrant voters.

For now, Romney accuses Giuliani of making New York City a haven for illegal immigrants because Giuliani followed a policy, started by one of his predecessors, by which city employees were not required to report illegal immigrants to federal authorities.

Giuliani says when Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he did nothing about three "sanctuary" cities that had even more liberal policies.

In fact, those were the right policies to protect the American public. They made illegal immigrants feel that they could report crimes without getting arrested. They kept undocumented students in school and out of trouble. They allowed illegal immigrants to seek medical attention, without fear of being reported, instead of spreading communicable illnesses.

Romney claims he tried to deal with sanctuary cities by deputizing Massachusetts State Police to enforce federal immigration laws. But everyone knows he did that on his way out of the governor's office — after he decided to run for president as a conservative instead of the moderate he had been on immigration and several other issues.

Heck, Romney even had illegal immigrants mowing his lawn. Now he claims he didn't know his landscaper hired illegal workers. It's hogwash.

Giuliani now wants us to believe he went after illegal immigrants when he was mayor. But he can't run away from the many statements he has made in their defense.

" If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you are one of the people who we want in this city," Giuliani told The New York Times in 1994.

No amount of backpedaling will change their records. Romney is a well-established flip-flopper, and instead of blasting him for it, Giuliani is emulating him. Yet the key question of what to do with 12 million illegal immigrants remains unanswered by these two masters of double talk.

It's time for the American people to join Sen. Martinez in challenging the top GOP contenders: Will the real Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney please stand up? You're in the race for president. It's time to show some real leadership.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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