After the election this month—when President Obama won the Latino vote by a 75-23% margin, conservatives of all stripes have been coming out of the woodwork to admit that the loss of the Latino vote doomed Republicans this year, and that the GOP must do better with this demographic or else face irrelevance.
The latest to throw in his two cents? None other than almost-presidential candidate, reality TV star, and orange-American Donald Trump, who told Newsmax yesterday that Mitt Romney lost among certain voting groups in part because of his “maniacal” immigration policy. As the Huffington Post quotes Trump:
He had a crazy policy of self-deportation, which was maniacal. It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote … He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.
Trump further said that Democrats might not have a particular plan for immigration reform, but at least “they weren’t mean-spirited about it.”
Trump might not be the most credible character around–this year, he’s spent time in the news for doubting the President’s birth certificate and calling for a post-election “revolution,” among other things. But when it comes to immigration, he’s had a history of at least sometimes having the right ideas. Here’s what he said during an appearance on Fox News this summer:
For people that have been here for years that have been hard-workers, have good jobs, they’re supporting their family — it’s very, very tough to just say, ‘By the way, 22 years, you have to leave. Get out. I’m one of the world’s very conservative people, but I have to tell you on a human basis, how do you throw somebody out that’s lived in this country for 20 years.
That’s more than we can say about Mitt “self-deportation” Romney or his failure of an adviser Kris Kobach.
