The Atlantic : Marc Ambinder : "Newt's Gift to Obama: A GOP Immigration Rift" - Newt puts Mitt Romney in a difficult spot - Newt moves Mitt Romney to the right , to a place that college-educated white voters question

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And College Educated White Voters may be the guys that decide the 2012 presidential election :

"Mitt Romney's extreme anti-immigrant views were on clear display. Romney once again went to the right of every other Republican presidential candidate, refusing to agree with others on the stage that tearing apart families is wrong or that we shouldn't implement an extreme and inhumane immigration policy."

The Atlantic

Newt's Gift to Obama: A GOP Immigration Rift

With his "humane" argument, the former House speaker has put the president's chief rival, Mitt Romney, in a difficult spot

By Marc Ambinder

November 23, 2011


Newt's Gift to Obama: A GOP Immigration Rift


Some excerpts :

Now, whether you agree with Gingrich or Romney, recognize that the DNC and the Obama campaign now has a new incentive to see Newt Gingrich become the true face of the GOP anti-establishment opposition to Romney, as ironic as that last phrase is. If Gingrich and Romney publicly argue over immigration, the DNC and Obama 2012 will do everything they can to reproduce this debate before college-educated white voters in Virginia, North Carolina, the Rust Belt and elsewhere. It's a perfect time, because the national electorate is starting to wake up and pay attention to the race. Now is the time when Mitt Romney, the guy who Chicago expects will be the nominee, is at his most tender, most doughy, and most mold-able.

On Tuesday, National Journal's Ron Brownstein helped Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin introduce their latest demographic study of the electorate, which projects that the share of non-whites voting in battleground states in 2012 will jump two percentage points, a boost for President Obama, or a cushion of sorts for any shedding of white voters. (Working class whites will correspondingly drop three percent.)

The demographic battleground, as Brownstein, Teixeira and Halpin see it, will be among college-educated whites, particularly women, who helped put Obama over the top in the Midwest, West, and in states like Florida and Virginia even though, across all the battlegrounds, that cohort gave its vote to John McCain by four points. Mitt Romney does better among these voters than any GOP candidate. And those college-educated white voters could question Romney's compassion if he takes too hard-line a stance on immigration.

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