What do Romney's campaign partners say about his policies?

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Romney To Deliver Commencement At Anti-Gay Liberty University

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Mitt Romney — who at an earlier point in his career hadpromised to advance the equality of gay and lesbian people — isscheduled to deliver the Commencement address at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University on May 12, an Evangelical Christian college that refuses to recognize people or ideas that don’t adhere to its social conservative worldview.

The university — founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1971 — seeks to impress on its students a “commitment to the Christian life” that “leads people to Jesus Christ as the Lord of the universe and their own personal Savior” and forbids openly gay enrollees. Students are required to abide by a strict Code of Conduct, which prohibits them from engaging in “[n]on-marital sexual relations,” drinking, smoking, watching R-rated movies, dancing, cursing or hugging for longer than three seconds. In 2009, the school attracted controversy after it revoked its recognition of a Democratic club, because “[t]he Democratic Party platform is contrary to the mission of Liberty University and to Christian doctrine.” The school condemned the party for supporting abortion rights, “same-sex marriage, hate crimes, LGBT rights, and socialism.”

To that end, Liberty is heavily invested in the anti-gay and ex-gay movement. The schoolwithdrew from the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2010 to protest the inclusion of a gay rights group and hosted a one-day symposium to address the consequences of being gay. The event offered sessions on “[u]nderstanding Same-sex Attractions and Their Consequences” and “Homosexual Rights and First Amendment Freedoms: Can They Truly Coexist?” Liberty University law professors Matt Barber and Judith Reisman have also linked gay and lesbian rights to “the pedophile movement,” while the school’s affiliates describe marriage equality as a “rebellion against God” and claim that gay people are more likely to commit suicide because they know “what they are doing is unnatural, is wrong, [and] is immoral.”

Significantly, this isn’t the first time Romney has embraced conservative Christian Evangelicals in an effort to endear himself to Republican voters. In 2007, he addressed Regent University, the school founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.

Republican Presidential race heads south

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On MLK Day, Romney Campaigning With Anti-Immigrant Official Tied To Hate Groups

By Amanda Peterson Beadle/Think Progress

On a day set aside to honor civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., Mitt Romney plans to tout his extreme immigration positions during a campaign stop in South Carolina today — with Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s and Alabama’s immigration laws, at his side. He will attack his competitors Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry for their softer immigration stances, which could resonate with South Carolina voters who support that state’s harmful immigration law.

“Mitt Romney stands apart from the others. He’s the only one who’s taken a strong across-the-board position on immigration,” Kobach said, and he told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that Romney was much farther to the right on illegal immigration than his fellow presidential candidates. Watch:

Considering Kobach’s own opinions and associations, however, his endorsement may not be one Romney wants to tout.

Before he became Kansas’ secretary of state, Kobach worked for Immigration Reform Law Institute, the legal branch of Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled as a “nativist hate group.” One of FAIR’s main goals is to overturn the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which “ended a decades-long, racist quota system that limited immigration mostly to northern Europeans.” FAIR’s founder John Tanton has said that he wants the U.S. to remain a majority-white nation through limiting the number of non-whites who enter the U.S.

When Arizona’s SB 1070, Kobach, in emails to then-state Sen. Russell Pierce (R), pushed for the law to be used to cast a wide net against Latinos. He helped write an even more harmful immigration law for Alabama, which effectively made it illegal to live as an undocumented immigrant in the state. And when Kobach ran for Congress in 2004, he lost by an 11-point margin after his opponent accused him of having ties to white supremacists. (While campaigning, he was working on a FAIR lawsuit against Kansas’ law granting in-state tuition to the children of undocumented immigrants; the suit was dismissed.) Kobach even once wrote a book opposing the anti-Apartheid boycott of South Africa.

Romney proudly said he “look[ed] forward” to working with Kobach on stopping illegal immigration, and Kobach has been equally effusive of Romney, saying, “Mitt Romney is the candidate who will finally secure the borders and put a stop to the magnets,” when announcing his support. Again and again, Romney has proven how hardline he is on immigration, and Kobach’s support continues to reinforce it.

Romney’s views on immigration are radical even in a field of candidates who appear to becompeting to take the most radical views on this subject. But as extreme as Romney’s immigration stances have been, campaigning with an anti-immigrant official with ties to a hate group on Martin Luther King Day is beyond the pale.

Newt Gingrich: I’ll Tell African-Americans That They Should ‘Demand Paychecks And Not Be Satisfied With Food Stamps’

By Tanya Somanader/Think Progress

The GOP presidential candidates are becoming more comfortable trafficking in stereotypes when it comes to African-Americans and welfare benefits. Surprise Iowa frontrunner Rick Santorumrecently declared (and later denied) that “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.” The NAACP blasted Santorum for “inaccurate and outrageous” remarks that “lifts up old race-based stereotypes about public assistance.”

Today in New Hampshire, another GOP presidential hopeful offered his own take. Consistently slamming President Obama as “the best food stamp president in history,” Newt Gingrich tried to paint himself as a more desirable alternative to town hall attendees, insisting he’d be “the best paycheck president in American history.” Singling out African-Americans, Gingrich declared that he’d attend the NAACP just to tell African-Americans why they should “not be satisfied with food stamps”:

GINGRICH: More people are on food stamps today because of Obama’s policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history. Now, there’s no neighborhood I know of in America where if you went around and asked people, “Would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks,” you wouldn’t [SIC] end up with a majority saying they’d rather have a paycheck.

And so I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. And I’ll go to them and explain a brand new Social Security opportunity for young people, which should be particularly good for African-American males — because they’re the group that gets the smallest return on Social Security because they have the shortest life span.

Watch it:

Not only is his perception of food stamp beneficiaries prejudicial, it’s false. The majority of people who participate in the food stamp program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), are white. Most of the participants are also either children (who can’t earn a paycheck unless Gingrich gets his way) or seniors who are of retirement age. In 2010, working-women represented only 28 percent of SNAP beneficiaries, and working-age men represented only 17 percent.

What’s more, an increasing number of SNAP beneficiaries actually do have jobs and receive paychecks that are the primary source of their income. Unfortunately, only 15 percent of those incomes are above the poverty line. Thus, SNAP benefits provide a necessary safety net to families trying to stay afloat in a sluggish economy. But rather than seeing America’s most vulnerable populations as deserving of aid, Gingrich prefers to see them as lazy drug-users who prefer to put their benefits towards a Hawaii vacation.

Matt Romney Suggests His Father Won’t Release Tax Returns Until Obama ‘Releases His Grades And Birth Certificate’

By Judd Legum/Think Progress

Appearing in New Hampshire as a surrogate for his father, Matt Romney suggested to a group of voters that Mitt Romney would not release his tax returns until Barack Obama released “his grades and his birth certificate.”

Concord Patch has the video. Here’s a transcript:

Q: Will Romney eventually open his tax returns, so we can see what’s going on like most candidates will do and have done?

TAGG ROMNEY: We have no idea.

MATT ROMNEY: He has not said that he will not do it. He has also not said that he will. It’s a matter of time until that issue comes up because I think everyone has to get a chance to do that. So I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not sure he knows the answer to that. But he will do everything that he needs to do. He’s certainly not afraid of anything. Hiding anything. I heard someone suggest the other day that as soon as President Obama releases his grades and birth certificate and sort of a long list of things then maybe he’d do it.

Of course, responding to a cacphony of conspiracy theorists, Barack Obama has already released his birth certificate. Craig Romney can view it here.

Mitt Romney would be the first major party candidate since Watergate to refuse to release his taxes. He recently told MSNBC that “I don’t intend to release the tax returns. I don’t.”

UPDATE

This post initially misidentified which Romney son was speaking. It has been corrected.

Trump To Black Journalist: ‘I Know You’re A Big Obama Fan’

By Judd Legum

Yesterday during his press conference in New Hampshire –- after the cable news networks cut to President Obama’s remarks regarding the release of his long form birth certificate — potential GOP presidential candiate Donald Trump spent some time extolling infrastructure investments made by China and other countries, suggesting the U.S. should follow suit. This prompted Les Trent, a reporter for Inside Edition, to ask Trump: “Isn’t that what President Obama tried to do with his stimulus package?”

Trump’s response to Trent, who is African American, was “Look, I know you are a big Obama fan.” Trent replied, “Why do you say that?”

Here’s the transcript of the exchange:

TRUMP:When was the last time – if you go to China, as an example – bridges being built, massive bridges. When is the last time we built a bridge in this country, other than a little toy.
LES TRENT: Isn’t that what President Obama tried to do with his stimulus package?
TRUMP: The President… Look I know you are a big Obama fan.The president doesn’t know what he’s doing.
LES TRENT: Why do you say that?
TRUMP: Because of your question. The President doesn’t know what he is doing.

Watch it:

In an interview with ThinkProgress about the exchange, Trent said, “I think race was a factor. … I’m just assuming, I mean I have no way of knowing that. But I just don’t understand why he said that to me and not anyone else.”

The incident appears to be part of a pattern of recent racially-tinged comments by Trump.

With additional reporting by Alex Seitz-Wald

UPDATELast night, on CBS Evening News, Face the Nation host and CBS correspondent Bob Schieffer criticized Trump's recent statements regarding Obama'scollege transcripts, saying race was Trump's underlying motive:

"That's just code for saying he got into law school because he's black.This is an ugly strain of racism that's running through this whole thing. We can hope that kind of comes to an end too, but we'll have to see," Schieffer said.

Trump responded today, saying he wasn't suggesting anything about Obama's race:

"That is a terrible statement for a newscaster to make. I am the last person that such a thing should be said about." [...] "Affirmative action is out there. It's a program that is available. But I have no idea whether it applies in this case. I'm not suggesting anything."

Donald Trump reveals he’s a birther

By David Edwards

Donald Trump isn't even running for president yet, but he is already gearing up for the primaries by pandering to the Republican base.

In an interview with ABC News' Ashleigh Banfield that aired Thursday, Trump said he had some doubts that President Barack Obama was a U.S. citizen.

"Everybody that even gives any hint of being a birther -- a word you didn't use -- even a little bit of a hint like 'gee, you know, maybe, just maybe this much of chance,' they label them as an idiot," he told Banfield.

"Let me tell you, I'm a really smart guy," Trump continued. "I was a really good student at the best school in the country. The reason I have a little doubt -- just a little -- is because he grew up and nobody knew him."

"When you interview people, if I ever got the nomination, if I ever decide to run, you may go back and interview people from my kindergarten. They'll remember me. Nobody ever comes forward. Nobody knows who he is until later in his life."

"It's very strange. The whole thing is very strange," he added.

If the American business magnate wants the Republican nomination then he may need support from the birthers. A recent PPP poll found that a majority of Republican voters don't believe Obama was born in the U.S.

Trump also took issue with Republican House Speaker John Boehner's emotional outbursts.

"I don't like the crying," he said. "I do not like it. I don't understand it. I really like him as a person. I think the crying is an emotional thing that frankly, probably makes him a very nice man. But you know, I don't like to see it in a leader."

Trump told Banfield that he was prepared to spend $600 million of his own money if he does decide to make a run for the White House.

"That's one of the nice things. I mean, part of the beauty of me is that I'm very rich. So if I need $600 million, I can put $600 million myself," he said.

This video is from ABC's Good Morning America, broadcast March 17, 2011.