Wrapping up a two-day dash through Southern California, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney on Thursday assured supporters in Burbank that he would help rescue financially-troubled families with his promised middle-class tax cuts reports the Los Angeles Times.
But he also quickly went on the offensive, seizing on the issue of illegal immigration to jab his chief rival, Rudolph W. Giuliani, by accusing the former New York mayor of turning the city into a magnet for illegal immigrants and comparing his record on the issue to that of Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Giuliani “was responsible for a sanctuary city. . . . He welcomed the illegal aliens to the city,” Romney told reporters after his “town hall meeting.” “That sanctuary state of mind is one of the reasons we have so many illegal immigrants in our country today.”
The sniping between the two GOP candidates has intensified as the former Massachusetts governor nurses a narrow lead in the upcoming Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Victories in those contests, the first en route to the GOP nomination, are essential to Romney’s effort to gather the political momentum to surmount Giuliani’s lead among Republican voters in national polls.
The mostly Republican crowd at the “Ask Mitt Anything” gathering, held at the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel and Convention Center on the edge of the Bob Hope Airport, provided evidence about why Romney has aggressively used illegal immigration as a political spear against Giuliani. Romney’s promise to crack down on illegal immigrants received the loudest applause at the event.
The crowd included a mixture of Romney campaign supporters and local business leaders, including members of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., as well as a handful of disinterested high school students assigned to write term papers on the event. It was Romney’s fourth “Ask Mitt Anything” meeting in California.
Read it here: Romney Mines for Votes in Southern California