Joined at the hip for the duration: Mitt Romney and Arizona's immigration law

Dana Milbank has, for once, gotten it right with regard to Mitt Romney. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee will not be able to Etch-a-Sketch his way out of support for SB 1070. The law, passed two years ago and now being reviewed by the Supreme Court, presumes to pre-empt the federal government on enforcement of immigration law.

While Romney tacks back toward what passes for the center these days as the general election campaign gets under way, he's going to have a hard time separating himself from this law he has called a "model" and from its tea party author, Russell Pearce. Milbank says:

Pearce, the former Republican president of the Arizona Senate, is the author and self-described 'driving force' behind S.B. 1070, that state's law ' endorsed by Romney ' cracking down on illegal immigrants. Pearce told The Post's Felicia Sonmez this month that Romney's 'immigration policy is identical to mine,' and he told reporters this week that Romney 'absolutely' gave him the impression that he saw the Arizona law as a national model.

This just adds to Romney's problem with a key voter demographic: Latinos. As recently noted by kos, only 14 percent of Latinos supported Romney for president as of the second week of April, with 70 percent for President Obama. Romney's having backed Pearce's law and the racial profiling that, of necessity, is required by its implementation, will not be forgotten.

Pearce's testimony at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Tuesday, which was boycotted by Senate Republicans, provided additional evidence of his extremism. Not just his, however. He wasn't off base when he pointed out that the Arizona law represents 'by far the majority opinion of my party.'

That is why the Etch-a-Sketch technique will be a major fail on this issue.