The Governor of Montana had choice words for Mitt Romney today, saying that while he will probably win Montana, he will suffer in states where Latino votes are required for victory.
Schweitzer also made a somewhat unusual point: that Romney, who has degraded and insulted hispanics during his Republican primary, will be unable to discuss his personal Mexican heritage as a way of making himself more palatable to Latino voters.
Romney's grandfather lived in Mexico in a Mormon colony, and Romney's father was born there. That's right: by some interpretations (including the 14th amendment theories espoused by most Republican Montana state legislators), Mitt Romney is the son of a Mexican.
Schweitzer, in the Huffington Post article, says he believes that Romney will shy away from discussing this interesting connection to Mexico. Why? The Mormon colony that Romney's father was born into was a Polygamy colony. Indeed, Romney has four grandfathers, but dozens of grandmothers.
We will see if Schweitzer is right. Given his personality, it's no stretch to envision Romney trying to convince voters that he is both a Mexican and an anti-immigrant American.
Finally, there's another very intriguing layer to what Schweitzer is saying. In speeches, he has often told the story of his grandmother, who came over to America a century ago from Ireland, sneaking past the immigration authorities by using her sister's papers (kind of like when a teenager gets into a bar using her older sister's driver's license).
Romney, you will recall, has taken the position (opposed by Gingrich and Santorum, who viewed it as too right wing) that the progeny of illegal immigrants, the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters, must be deported. Thus does Mitt Romney argue that Schweitzer should be returned to Ireland.
I'm sure the Montana GOP would have no problem with that. And right now, Romney is probably wishing for it too.