In an article by NBC’s Garrett Haake in FirstRead on MSNBC about off the record commentsmade by Mitt Romney an interesting picture is painted of the candidate.  While there doesn’t appear to be any way to verify this, and I wouldn’t trust anything from MSNBC I think there are some points here worth mentioning. Just in case the Romney campaign is seriously considering them.

“I’m going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies, and combine them. Some eliminate, but I’m probably not going to lay out just exactly which ones are going to go,” Romney said. “Things like Housing and Urban Development, which my dad was head of, that might not be around later. But I’m not going to actually go through these one by one. What I can tell you is, we’ve got far too many bureaucrats. I will send a lot of what happens in Washington back to the states.”

I will send a lot of what happens in Washington back to the states. If only this is true! If we stopped there I am certain that the Romney campaign would win my vote. The article continues

“”The Department of Education: I will either consolidate with another agency, or perhaps make it a heck of a lot smaller. I’m not going to get rid of it entirely,” Romney said, explaining that part of his reasoning behind preserving the agency was to maintain a federal role in pushing back against teachers’ unions.

I want to hear more about how you will use “what is left” to push back against the teacher unions, but I would feel a lot better with a different answer. Give the state control over education, period. You can do this by eliminating funding and mandates from the federal government. You don’t have to eliminate the department if you eliminate it’s power to corrupt. Unfortunately things turn ugly towards the end of the article. And if this is true, I can tell you I will not be voting for anyone for President in the fall.

Predicting that immigration would become a much larger issue in the fall campaign, Romney told his audience, “We have to get Hispanic voters to vote for our party,” warning that recent polling showing Hispanics breaking in huge percentages for President Obama “spells doom for us.” Romney said the GOP must offer its own policies to woo Hispanics, including a “Republican DREAM Act,” referring to the legislative proposal favored by Democrats that would offer illegal immigrants a limited path to citizenship, to give Hispanic voters a real choice between parties.

If you really want to win the hispanic vote start by getting rid of that term. We need the Cuban,  Mexican, Central American and Puerto Rican vote. We want South American vote. But we want that vote from people who are here legally because we also want respect for our immigration laws.

There should be no amnesty, do not even talk about amnesty . This is not just a conservative view point, it is a mandate of the independent voter, and let me remind you, Obama did not pass any laws. Oh he is dictating through policy violations of our sovereignty, but he did not sign anything.  And when the election comes around Obama will run away with the independent vote if they think you are selling out to the foreign invaders who are taking all the good jobs. That is how they will see it. If you want the votes of Mexicans promise Mexicans a return to growth and prosperity and an effective way to allow our honest hard working neighbors to come here temporarily for work. But don’t promise amnesty, or forgiveness for past violations, or anything like that.

If the Romney campaign offers another Republican version of amnesty, which has not in the past bought us wholesale support, I promise you that I will be voting in the fall for every position I can, except for President.  I can live with a house and senate majority but no Republican president if that is the price of  real “difference” between the Democrats and the Republicans on immigration.

Overall my opinion of Romney went up, although I know this is from MSNBC.  But I am worried about some of these things, if any of them are true.

Time will tell.