by: John Rodriguez
A few days ago a poll was released showing that Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was failing to sway Latino voters to hopefully go to electoral polls in November and elect him for President in 2012, but things may change if recent rumors are true regarding who Romney will select as his running mate and potential future Vice President.
In an interview broadcast on Thursday, Ann Romney disclosed that her husband is considering a woman as his running mate for his 2012 Presidential bid. And if Ann Romney is correct some in the political world believe the woman vice president would be New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez. With Martinez as a potential selection that may some of the estimated 50% “unsure” Latino voters into choosing Romney as our next President.
A conservative Republican, Martinez is the first Latina governor in U.S History and has caught the eye of Romney and the people within his campaign. “We’ve been looking at that, and I love that option as well,” said Ann Romney to CBS news about considering Martinez for the vice president nominee slot, “There’s a lot of people that Mitt is considering right now.”
Currently, Romney and his family are reportedly at their lakeside estate in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire taking a break from the campaign and enjoying the week long holiday. Although he claims to be on vacation, Romney and his wife met with his campaign manager Matt Rhoades, senior adviser Beth Myers, and top strategist Stuart Stevens for an estimated 45 minutes to discuss his campaign on his deck of his lakeside home. Some political analysts believe Romney is taking the time to address the rising criticism he is facing from the Republican Party due to the state of his campaign. And one way he is planning to address the criticism is by selecting his running mate.
Aside from Martinez being a potential running mate there are a dozen of candidates who have been mentioned by either Romney or those close in his campaign. New Hampshire Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte—who walked alongside Romney in a 4th of July parade on Wednesday—is one of the discussed potential running mates along with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. While these are just predications being made about who Romney will select, Romney himself has said the status of selecting his running mate is “something I’m keeping close with my team.”
While Romney is remaining quiet on his ideas and the status regarding the selection of his running mate, Ann Romney isn’t stating the person she would like see him running with should be “someone that obviously can do the job but will be able to carry through with some of the other responsibilities,” and be someone who would support her husband with a “competent, capable and willing to serve this country. I think there’s lots of good people out there that fill that bill right now.”
Whether or not Martinez meets that requirement will have to be on hold for now, but from past analysis on Martinez it is obvious she is not timid when it comes to questioning Romney’s position when it comes to certain things. Martinez has even questioned Romney’s position on Immigration.
Back in May, Martinez gave an interview with Newsweek where she was unusually outspoken on immigration and on Romney’s support of the enforcement policies that would make the lives of undocumented immigrants so miserable that they would opt to, according to the policy, self-deportation.
“Self deport? What the heck does that mean?” Martinez was quoted as saying in the piece, “I have no doubts Hispanics have been alienated during this Campaign. But now there’s an opportunity for Governor Mitt Romney to have a sincere conversation about what we can do and why. Republicans want to be tough and say, ‘Illegals, you’re gone.’ But the answer is a lot more complex than that.” While she has spoken out about Romney’s position on immigration, Martinez does supports comprehensive immigration reform which would tighten enforcement programs like border security and going after employers who hire undocumented workers
Whether or not Romney chooses Martinez as his running mate, the selection of a woman may boost Romney’s chances of getting votes amongst women of the U.S. As of now polls show that Romney falls behind Obama amongst women voters, but a selection of a Latina running mate would also help him amongst Latino voters since he is not so popular amongst the community in comparison to Obama.
Whomever Romney chooses will be his biggest decision which he will make in-between now and when he accepts the GOP’s presidential nomination in late August where he is expected to make the announcement. Until then, we the American people wait.
