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Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Minutemen founder endorses Huckabee
Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen Project, a citizen border patrol group that President Bush has likened to vigilantes, endorsed Mike Huckabee in the GOP presidential race Tuesday.
Huckabee said at a press conference that he was honored to receive the endorsement.
“No one can question Jim’s commitment to this country and the immigration problem. He has mobilized a group of volunteers to go to the border and draw attention to the issue of immigration. All of us want a policy where people come to this country through the front door, not the back door,” Huckabee said.
Gilchrist praised Huckabee’s recently released immigration plan that calls for fencing the border, eliminating some categories of legal immigration and other security measures. It was the latest in a string of efforts to show the former Arkansas governor is tough on illegal immigration.
The endorsement came as his rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is attacking Huckabee in a television ad for supporting scholarships for illegal immigrant children during his tenure in Arkansas.
See the Romney ad below.
Romney attacks Huckabee on immigration
In what is being called the first attack ad of the GOP presidential primary, Mitt Romney is going after Mike Huckabee’s record on immigration.
The advertisement, which started airing today, compares the two former governors on the issue, saying that Romney “stood up and vetoed in-state tuition for illegal aliens” while Huckabee supported such a measure. It also says that Huckabee “even supported tax-payer funded scholarships for illegal aliens.”
Huckabee is a former governor of Arkansas and Romney is a former governor of Massachusetts.
See the ad here:
Huckabee spokesman Joe Carter responded to the advertisement with this statement sent toThe Politico: “We’re disappointed that Governor Romney favors smearing his fellow Republicans as his primary campaign strategy. But the voters in Iowa are too savvy to fall for such desperate tactics. They have seen both Governor Huckabee’s plan on immigration enforcement and border security and the less detailed approach put out by Governor Romney. As his ad notes, the choice does matter. We believe that on January 3rd Iowa voters will make the right choice.”
Huckabee has been dogged by accusations that he is soft on illegal immigration. In an effort to quash such concerns, he released a nine-point plan last week that calls for fencing the border, eliminating categories of legal immigration, and other security measures.
Huckabee also released an ad in which he promises to “fight to secure our borders” and to reject amnesty and “sanctuary cities” where police and local officials do not to check the immigration status of residents using city services.
You can see the Huckabee ad below.
