Thread: Navarrette: McCain solid on immigration; Obama flip-flops

McCain solid on immigration; Obama flip-flops
By RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.

July 18, 2008
SAN DIEGO — Presidential candidates who seem to change positions as they change audiences should avoid accusing others of flip-flopping. It makes them look silly.

That's the lesson for John McCain, who has criticized Barack Obama for reversing his views on campaign finance and easing off his keep-up-with-Hillary-Clinton opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Obama also flip-flopped on building hundreds of miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border; the Illinois Democrat voted for the fence before he was against it.

"This election is about trust and trusting people's word," McCain recently told supporters in Louisville, Ky. "And unfortunately, apparently on several items, Senator Obama's word cannot be trusted."

Obama may be the candidate of change, but he deserves to be hammered for changing course on some issues. Yet McCain isn't one to talk. When it comes to consistency, the Arizona senator has a soft spot of his own — immigration, once a signature issue.

And during a recent speech, Obama went right for it.

"One place where Senator McCain used to offer change was on immigration," Obama said last month at the annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. "He was a champion of comprehensive reform, and I admired him for it. But when he was running for his party's nomination, he walked away from that commitment and he's said he wouldn't even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote."

I'm glad to hear that Obama admired McCain for championing immigration reform, since the presumptive Democratic nominee kept mum on the issue in the Senate and for much of the 16-month-long primary battle with Clinton. Besides, for those of us who support comprehensive immigration reform and worry that the debate has been poisoned by racism, quick fixes and scapegoating, there are many reasons to admire McCain.

Among them is the fact that McCain wasn't afraid to stand up to members of his party, as when — during a debate — he dismissed Rep. Tom Tancredo's nativist take on what it means to be an American as "beyond my realm of thinking." Or when, according to former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., McCain scolded GOP colleagues for attempting to declare English the national language and warned them that Hispanics would see it as a divisive and racist loyalty oath.

It's true that McCain said during a debate in January that he would not vote for the bill that he twice introduced with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. But I interpreted that to mean that Congress had made its views on the legislation clear by killing it, and that McCain realized that he would have to propose different legislation to achieve his reform goals.

After all, in recent weeks, McCain has broadcast his intention, if elected, to press for comprehensive immigration reform. Still, he also tells Republican groups that he "got the message" that we must secure the borders first before we decide what to do with the 12 million illegal immigrants already here.

No wonder a lot of people think McCain is talking out of both sides of his mouth on immigration. He isn't. Anyone who says that this is a departure from McCain-Kennedy needs to go back and read that legislation as amended last year. As the proponents of comprehensive reform said at the time — including some of the same people now painting McCain as a flip-flopper — the bill had enforcement "triggers" that had to be met before any legalization kicked in.

So Obama is wrong. This isn't a flip-flop. McCain is basically in the same place he was a year ago. If you want to fault McCain, fault him for failing to communicate that and making a mess of his own position. He should have one speech on the subject, and he should deliver it to groups on both the right and the left.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune, P.O. Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191. Send e-mail to ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.
http://tinyurl.com/6aj357

OK ... So what is McCain going to do about illegals in the country?

Tell me more, and more please, Senator McCain.

Thanks tencz57

You are ever so RIGHT

Originally Posted by vmonkey56

OK ... So what is McCain going to do about illegals in the country?

Tell me more, and more please, Senator McCain.

Well I "Will" make them all Citizens , since they work so cheap. Then i will replace every single working White and Black citizen with a "New" citizen . So THEY can see what this great land is about and learn to love it as we do . The Whites and Blacks i'll send off to the 100 year war ! Great plan , everybodys happy. La Raza now pays me instead of me paying them . Isn't life great

Ruben, Either way you aren't going to get your CIR.