After Mexico, Christie must strike delicate balance

MEXICO CITY - Eduardo Penaloza agrees with Gov. Christie's vision, expressed during a trade mission to Mexico last week, of a stronger relationship between the United States and its largest Latin American trading partner.

What Penaloza - a former Mexican consulate official who heads a group promoting Mexican business initiatives in East Harlem - isn't sure of is Christie's stance on some of "the thorny politics" surrounding issues important to Hispanics, he said. Among them: immigration and driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants in New Jersey.

"We've sort of left apart that in this trip," said Penaloza, who was in Mexico last week at the invitation of Choose New Jersey, a privately funded economic-development group affiliated with the state that helped underwrite Christie's trip. "Happily, because it's clear this is about business opportunity."

Still, "this issue will be raised," Penaloza said. "It has to be."

Though Christie skirted the topic of immigration during his three-day trade mission to Mexico, saying he would speak out on his position "if and when" he is a presidential candidate, the issue will pose an unavoidable political challenge if he decides to run in 2016.

The task: navigating a delicate balance between competing in a Republican primary where conservatives hold sway and appealing to the rapidly growing Hispanic population, whose support is seen as critical to the GOP's effort to win the White House. In 2012, candidate Mitt Romney won just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in his failed bid against President Obama.

Christie won 51 percent of the Hispanic vote in his landslide reelection last year.

"Why go through the ordeal of seeking the nomination if you don't have a good chance of winning the White House?" said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

"If the GOP goes too far to the right on immigration and other social issues, the party will lose again in 2016," Sabato said. "Christie, Jeb Bush, and others get that."

Potential Republican contenders in 2016 who have weighed in recently on immigration include Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has called for making the 2014 election a "referendum on amnesty." Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who championed the immigration legislation that passed the Senate last year but that was rejected by the House, has said the focus now must first be on border security.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, also a Republican, garnered headlines this summer for sending National Guard troops to the border - in contrast to the tone he struck during his 2012 presidential campaign, when he defended his support for a Texas law allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates.

Christie last year signed into law a similar measure in New Jersey, though without allowing undocumented immigrants access to state financial aid for school. He would likely be attacked over the issue in a Republican primary, said Sylvia Manzano, a principal at Latino Decisions, a Seattle firm that polls Hispanics on immigration-related issues.

Christie would not be able to win a Republican primary "by taking a moderate position on immigration or border politics," Manzano said. She noted a political climate in which House Republicans recently voted to repeal a federal program that has allowed some young undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States without fear of deportation.

The role immigration reform plays in the 2016 election may hinge on actions taken by Obama and Congress before the election, Manzano said. She said that if some form of immigration reform is passed by Congress with Republican support, "Hispanics will be much more open to their message on all other issues."

If Republicans don't act, and Obama takes executive action to reshape the immigration system without the approval of Congress, the party will not benefit with Hispanic voters, Manzano said.

Christie may be waiting for Obama to act before articulating a position, Sabato said.

The White House said Saturday that Obama would delay any action on immigration until after the November elections.

Republicans attacked the decision, seen by many as an effort to avert risk to Democratic incumbents running for reelection in states where the president is unpopular.

A White House official told the Washington Post the decision was due to "the Republicans' extreme politicization of the issue" and a desire not to doom long-term prospects for reform.

Christie has accused Obama of failing to secure the border. In Mexico, he also sounded a compassionate note while talking about the influx of unaccompanied children crossing the border into the United States, saying that "our No. 1 concern should be protecting the safety and welfare of those children."

The tone Republicans employ while talking about immigration "sends a very loud and clear signal to Hispanics," said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster in Washington. "Most people get intuitively whether you're sympathetic to their concerns or not."

Christie spent three days in Mexico on a mission to strengthen economic and cultural ties between the Latin American country and New Jersey. He met with a slate of Mexican and business leaders, including President Enrique Peña Nieto, and visited the state of Puebla, where many Mexican Americans living in New Jersey have roots.

Ayres said Christie's trip to Mexico was a smart approach to conveying a welcoming tone to Hispanics. "It's exactly what Republican candidates who hope to reach the next level need to be doing," he said.

Christie wasn't the only possible 2016 candidate to appear in Mexico last week. At an event Friday in Mexico City, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she would bring a "unique vantage point" if she ran for president. She said she expected to make a decision to seek the Democratic nomination by the first of the year.

Christie's presence in Mexico won't necessarily help him appeal to Hispanics in the United States, said Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. He said Christie's "position on immigration is going to matter much more whether Hispanics vote for him than a three-day trip to Mexico."