From Wednesday’s Rush Limbaugh Show:
RUSH: Senator, you’ve been, obviously, observing and commenting on political life in America for a long time. You’ve been in the Senate now for six months. Could you explain to me and people in this audience, why do the Democrats want this, and why do the Republicans who support this want it?
CRUZ: Well, the Democrats want this for pure politics. Chuck Schumer was very candid in the Senate Judiciary Committee when he said, “If there is no citizenship, there can be no reform.” This is all about their endeavor. They want to grant amnesty, and they hope to get a lot more Democratic voters, or they want this to be voted down and use it as a political issue in 2014 and 2016.
On the Republican side, sadly, a lot of the support of it is political as well. You know, after 2012, all of the Washington political consultants and all the mainstream media came to Republicans and said, “You’ve got to do better with Hispanics, and the way to do better with Hispanics is to embrace amnesty.” And, look, a lot of Republicans in Washington were scared. I gotta tell you, I think that political argument is complete nonsense. If you look at the last time we enacted amnesty in 1986, the next election was 1988, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote went down. It is not the case — Hispanics are not the single-issue, monolithic voters.
My dad was an immigrant from Cuba with nothing. And many Hispanics believe in rule of law, and you’ve got a bunch of Republican longtime officeholders in Washington who are scared and listening to the consultants. Let me tell you an interesting poll number. In Texas, Rush, we polled Hispanic voters in Texas and asked them, “Number one, do you support more border security?” Sixty-eight percent of Hispanic voters in Texas support more border security. But the second question is even more revealing. Hispanic voters we asked, “Do you support a pathway to citizenship or work permits that do not allow citizenship?” And a plurality, 46% of Hispanic voters in Texas supported a work permit without citizenship and only 35% supported a pathway to citizenship. This is a crock that is being sold to Republican politicians that they can just buy off Hispanics, and frankly it’s offensive, but it’s being sold as pure politics.
Audio at the link.
Exit question: Why isn’t Marco Rubio sharp enough to see what Ted Cruz sees? Especially when it comes to what Chuck Schumer is up to?
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