Young Voters and Funny Accents: Romney and Giuliani Scrap Over Immigration

Before, during and after the CNN/YouTube Republican presidential debate last week, conservative commentators bemoaned the “gimmick” of the forum as a trap for liberals to embarrass GOP hopefuls. Crusty commentators complained that “liberal” CNN and YouTube were conspiring to present questions designed to put Republican candidates in awkward positions. (We wonder what sort of question would be too awkward for any presidential candidate to handle? And what could be more awkward than asking if the candidates have talked to their children about sex, as the Democratic candidates were asked?) Perhaps Mike Huckabee’s refusal to answer a question about whether Jesus would support the death penalty is an example. But an espoused Christian and espoused supporter of the death penalty should either be able to public articulate why this is not a contradiction, or explain why it doesn’t matter that it is. The reality is that old-media journalists are concerned that young people (who have eschewed conventional media) will get involved in politics, which, they assume, means trouble for the Republicans. Conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt mocked the age (30) of Steve Grove, YouTube’s director of political content, declaring “I don’t trust you.”

As it turns out, there were a lot of anti-Republican questions submitted, but CNN weeded most of them out, leaving a host of creatively delivered and substantively relevant questions for the candidates to consider. In fact, they ignored a question from Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean, but aired one by K Street Project founder and conservative activist Grover Norquist.

The first question of the night generated the most heat, as Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney exchanged barbs about their ability to speak authoritatively on the issue of illegal immigration. The exchange was loaded with racial imagery and assumptions.

YouTuber Ernie Nardie from Brooklyn remarked that under Giuliani’s leadership, New York City operated as a “sanctuary city.” He asked the former mayor, “[I]f you become president of the United States, will you continue to aid and abet the flight of illegal aliens into this country?” Giuliani answered by saying that New York was not a sanctuary city, and Romney countered that it was. Giuliani then made reference to a fairly old claim, but one that was probably new to most viewers: Romney had illegal immigrants working at the governor’s mansion when he was running Massachusetts. A landscaping agency contracted to work at the mansion did hire illegal immigrants, so the claim is factually accurate, but a stretch if it is intended to suggest some inconsistency or hypocrisy on Romney’s part.

As we noted this past summer (as well as last week), it is impossible to disentangle race from the current discourse about immigration; implicit in all discussion is that the “aliens” are from Mexico (read: are a drain on public financing, refuse to speak English, are taking jobs from hard working Americans, etc.).

During the scrap that ensued, a frustrated Romney tried to force Giuliani to take a controversial position:

Are you suggesting, Mr. Mayor -- because I think it is really kind of offensive actually to suggest, to say look, you know what, if you are a homeowner and you hire a company to come provide a service at your home -- paint the home, put on the roof. If you hear someone that is working out there, not that you have employed, but that the company has. If you hear someone with a funny accent, you, as a homeowner, are supposed to go out there and say, "I want to see your papers." Is that what you're suggesting?

Giuliani’s response was that Romney had to explain the situation if he was going to take a “holier than thou” attitude about immigration. Moments later, Romney again tried to get Giuliani to take the “offensive” position, but this time changed his characteristic of an Hispanic accent from “funny” to not “like yours”:

I ask the mayor again. Are you suggesting, Mayor, that if you have a company that you hired who provide a service, that you now are responsible for going out and checking the employees of that company, particularly those that might look different or don't have an accent like yours, and ask for their papers -- I don't think that's American, number one.

He didn’t get a chance to list his number two, but it is important to note three elements of this exchange (at least).

First, Giuliani invoked religion in a subtle way by suggesting that Romney was acting “holier than thou.” Romney has been pretty successful in avoiding religious discourse (see this breaking story) that may serve to remind fundamentalist Christians about his Mormonism.

Second, Romney invoked a common conservative refrain of judging who is or is not “American.” (Commentator Sean Hannity’s signature expression is to refer to someone as a “good American,” for instance.) Immigration, of course, is inherently related to national identity and citizenship; it is essentially an argument over who is a “real” American. By suggesting that Giuliani is putting forth an un-American position, Romney seeks to deflect a charge of his alleged weakness on judging who is really American.

Finally, Romney’s apparently inadvertent characterization of the Hispanic accent as “funny” provides insight into his beliefs about Latino Americans in general. Many American citizens from Latino descent (as well as naturalized citizens and offspring of immigrants from other nations) speak with accents that reflect their first language. Characterizing such an accent as “funny” (like Joe Pesci’s character in Goodfellas, we must ask: “Funny how?”), Romney reveals his bias against persons who learned English as a second language, irrespective of their citizenship status.

Under stress, our inhibitions are lessened, revealing what we would rather hide when we’re fully conscious (see Paul Haggis’s excellent film Crash for dramatized examples of this phenomenon). The fact that Romney corrected himself the second time around illustrates the inadvertent nature of the initial language choice.

Conservative commentators were worried about CNN and YouTube ambushing the Republicans, but the real embarrassment came from the candidates’ own words and responses to one another, not liberal questions from young voters or snowpersons. Older voters tend to perceive the YouTube debates as unnecessary at best and as undermining the electoral process at worst. From our position, to the extant that these debates attract a wider (and younger) audience than the traditional debates (which greatly outnumber the YouTube debates, of course) and continue to include relevant questions that allow the candidates to reveal their positions (intended or otherwise), there is no reason to fear them. We should, however, fear the tendency of candidates (of both parties) to mask their own xenophobia, especially while accusing others.