[KR: This may be the year that Cuban Americans vote in majority for a Democrat as president. None of the news reports I have seen so far indicate why most of the GOP candidates changed their mind from September and agreed to appear in this debate. Also, the GOP candidates did not change their rhetoric too much on unauthorized/illegal immigration. Makes you wonder what the GOP primary would have been like had the Senate compromise plan passed this summer…]

Republican Candidates Firm on Immigration
By MICHAEL COOPER and MARC SANTORA
New York Times, December 10, 2007

CORAL GABLES, Fla., Dec. 9 — In front of what will probably be their most pro-immigration audience, Republican candidates toned down their rhetoric but told Spanish-language television viewers in a debate on Sunday that they would take strong measures to close off the country’s borders to illegal immigration.

The candidates were forced into a difficult balancing act by the debate, broadcast on Univision, as they tried to offend neither the Hispanic audience nor the Republican base many of them have tried to appeal to by taking a hard line on illegal immigration. The topic has led to some of the fiercest rhetoric in past debates.

Most of the seven candidates took a softer tone on Sunday, even as many spoke of working to eradicate illegal immigration. Some spoke of trying to send some of the 12 million people who are estimated to be in the United States illegally back to their native countries.

They sandwiched their remarks between gauzy paeans to legal immigration and the values of immigrants.