Herman Cain: “I could not support Rick Perry”

In this society of relativism and constant change, it is simply amazing how opposition to illegal immigration and to the legalization of illegal aliens has become an unmovable position on the Republican right. No Republican presidential candidate can get around this barrier any more (though McCain with despicable dishonesty managed to do so in 2008). Any candidate who is weak on border security or law enforcement, or who gives the slightest sign of leaning toward amnesty under rhetorical cover of opposing it (and Republican voters have become hawk-eyed in this respect), will be unacceptable to the GOP, period.

Indeed, anti-illegal immigration is such a firm dogma now among Republicans that second tier (but rising) candidate Herman Cain lays down the law and announces that he could not support first-tier (but sinking) Rick Perry because of the latter’s GW Bush-like positions on illegal immigration. Politico reports:

Herman Cain said he could not support Rick Perry if he is the Republican nominee for president, citing a “basic fundamental difference of opinion” on border security.

“Today I could not support Rick Perry as the nominee for a host of reasons,” Cain told CNN host Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday.

“Him being soft on securing the border is one of the reasons. I feel very strongly about the need to secure the border for real, the need to enforce the laws that are already there, the need to promote the path to citizenship that’s already there,” Cain said.

In his book, “This is Herman Cain! My Road to the White House,” Cain slams Washington for an “inability” to deal with illegal immigration.

“It must occur legally, through the front door, not the side door or the back door,” Cain writes in the book, out next week.

Cain, who supported Mitt Romney in 2008, said he could support the former Massachusetts governor again if he committed to repeal Obamacare soon after taking office.

“If he stuck to that commitment, I could support him. But if in any way he wanted to compromise and go for a mandate, I couldn’t support him,” Cain said, referencing the issue considered Romney’s most significant political vulnerability. “But I believe that he has backed off that and he’s saying that he would repeal Obamacare.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 28, 2011 06:52 PM | Send