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It seems the Republicans are finally figuring out that they'd better do something different if they don't want more elections where they lose 75 percent of the Latino vote -- Schumer: ‘Darn Good Chance’ We Get Immigration Reform This Year:

Appearing Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sounded an optimstic note about the prospects for a comprehensive immigration reform deal this year.

"Senator [Lindsey] Graham and I have talked, and we are resuming the talks that were broken off two years ago," he said. "We had put together a comprehensive detailed blueprint on immigration reform. It had the real potential for bipartisan support."

Schumer described the contours of the plan: close the borders, crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, clear the way for immigrants the country needs and a path to citizenship for undocumented people.

"Graham and I are talking to our colleagues about this right now, and I think we have a darn good chance using this blueprint to get something done this year," he said. "The Republican Party has learned that being anti-immigrant doesn't work for them politically."

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Our own managing editor Tina Dupuy joined the set of The Young Turks along with The American Prospect's Paul Waldman as part of Cenk Uygur's Power Panel this Tuesday. The topics for the panel included Mitt Romney's problems with Latino voters and whether this helps or harms either candidate in the Presidential election.

As Tina noted, it may be a wash given Romney's huge deficits in the polls already with that voting bloc, however as Paul noted, it's never a good thing for Mitt Romney when voters are being reminded of his extremely harsh rhetoric on immigration he made during the primary race.

They also discussed crazy Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer doing her victory dance today after the Supreme Court struck down most of her state's "papers please" SB1070 law. They wrapped things up talking about Romney's spokesperson dodging the question 20 times today on Romney's stance the court's ruling.

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ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper says that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has a harsher stance on immigration than any Republican presidential nominee in decades.

Conservative columnist George Will on Sunday told Tapper that Romney was at a disadvantage with Latino voters because "he has to unring a bell that he rang during the primaries."

"It's interesting that Gov. Romney from New England is much more severe than Reagan, McCain or either Bush presidents were," Will noted. "All four of those coming from border states with more familiarity with it. So [President Barack Obama] has a double advantage here."

"I think empirically, Peggy, he's the most conservative nominee on the issue of illegal immigration and the Mexican border than any Republican nominee we've seen in the last 20 or 30 years," Tapper pointed out to Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan.

"Yeah," Noonan agreed. "And I don't suppose he thinks he can make real numeric progress with the Latino vote."

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), who is chair of the House Democratic Caucus, noted that Romney should have been able to make inroads with Latino voters because of the sluggish economy if it were not for his immigration policies.

"The difficulty for Mitt Romney is he was so vicious in going at the issue of immigration that he locked himself in," Becerra explained. "It was very telling in Miami -- the heart of Republican Latinos, where you find more of them than anywhere else -- Mitt Romney goes and speaks to a crowd, he gets polite applause. Barack Obama goes into Miami and he gets standing ovations from a crowd of mostly Latino elected and appointed officials, Republican and Democratic."

"And so it's become clear that for Mitt Romney, it's trying to sketch his way out of what he said in the primaries," the congressman added. "He went so far to the right. He still associates with these guys that are so conservative."

During the Republican primary battle, Romney had courted conservative voters with anti-immigration positions. He called Arizona’s tough immigration law a “model” for the country; he promised to veto the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act; and he said that undocumented immigrants should self-deport.

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This Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, David Gregory repeatedly asked Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to give him specifics on his version of the Dream Act, which he abandoned earlier this month after President Obama announced the his new policy halting deportation hearings for those who would have been affected by the Dream Act had it passed.

Just as in his previous interviews, Rubio insisted that insisted that "complicated issues require careful solutions," blamed President Obama for the fact that there's probably no chance in hell Rubio would get his legislation past his own caucus and they didn't want to do anything to encourage illegal immigration.

It's fairly obvious why Rubio didn't want to answer David Gregory's questions on whether immigrants should have to “go home” first before being allowed a path to citizenship in the United States. Rubio, like their presidential candidate Mitt Romney is now trying to thread the needle between not alienating their xenophobic base and not further alienating the Hispanic community with their overly harsh rhetoric on immigration and Romney's past statements about self-deportation. I don't think it's going to do them much good since there's nothing Mitt Romney can do to make those video recordings go away with the statements he's during both this and his last presidential campaign.

Transcript below the fold.

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Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is predicting that at least 40 percent of Latino voters will cast their ballots for GOP hopeful Mitt Romney -- even though he has only 27 percent of their support now.

NBC's David Gregory on Sunday asked Gingrich how big of a problem immigration was for the former Massachusetts governor.

"Well, I think he's got to address it," Gingrich explained. "But also you have, again, Barack Obama failed on immigration reform even when he had a Democratic House and Democratic Senate."

"The number one issue is jobs, the number two issue is the price of gasoline, the number three issue is housing and the number four issue is education," the former House speaker added. "The question is if you campaign on those issues, if Latinos conclude Mitt Romney is more likely to have my family have a job, he's more likely to bring down the price of gasoline, he's more likely to have my child have an effective education, does that overcome whatever the Democratic attack is?"

"And I think he will probably get the same percent as George W. Bush did, which will be up in the 40s."

During the Republican primary battle, Romney had courted conservative voters with anti-immigration positions. He called Arizona’s tough immigration law a “model” for the country; he promised to veto the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act; and he said that undocumented immigrants should self-deport.

But now that the former Massachusetts governor has pivoted to his general election campaign, he is considering support for a version of the DREAM Act sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and insisting that he only supported the uncontroversial parts of the Arizona immigration law.

The more recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (PDF) indicated that only 27 percent of Latino voters supported Romney, compared with 61 percent who were for Obama.

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)