Posted by
on Thursday, March 22, 2007 5:19:24 PM
What to my wondering eyes did appear, but a pandering candidate abandoning his peers ...
OK, so my poetry sucks, but the point is well made by the Boston Globe today that John McCain has walked away from his partnership with Ted Kennedy on their immigration amnesty bill:
Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John McCain have all but abandoned plans to cosponsor a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year, as McCain faces tough questions from conservatives on the presidential campaign trail about his support for immigrants' rights.
Kennedy, frustrated by the slow progress of his negotiations with McCain, is instead considering filing a bill on his own, modeled largely on the measure endorsed by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. McCain is continuing to talk to Kennedy about immigration proposals, but the Arizona Republican has not committed to supporting Kennedy's approach.
The erosion of the unlikely political partnership that brought the liberal Kennedy and the conservative McCain together on immigration suggests a tough road ahead for passing a sweeping immigration measure this year. Further complicating efforts to find consensus, a group of Republicans is working with the White House to draft an alternative bill.
McCain's hesitancy about joining Kennedy on the same issue they worked together on in the previous Congress also speaks to an emerging dynamic in the Republican presidential race.
McCain has encountered anger from hard-line immigration foes on the campaign trail, particularly over an aspect in last year's bill that would have allowed most undocumented immigrants to work toward citizenship. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, one of McCain's rivals for the GOP nomination, has been especially sharp in his condemnation of McCain's approach to immigration.
Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican who is supporting Romney's candidacy, said McCain appears to be learning that Republicans won't accept proposals that allow undocumented immigrants to gain legal status until the borders are secured.
"That's an important position for the Republican Party," DeMint said. "We're certainly not going to start off with any kind of expanded visa program, or any kind of normalization of those who are here."
This shows that McCain knows where his primary weak spot is on his platform. Immigration reform, especially enforcement, is a national security issue. It's a fiscal issue, too, as we are paying millions upon millions of dollars for health care, welfare, and incarceration of illegal aliens here in America. Normalization can come AFTER we tighten and reform enforcement of the borders. We MUST have control of our borders so we know who's coming in and leaving, and what their intentions are in our nation.
McCain has rightly taken blow after blow on this issue, and each one is wel-deserved. The base isn't too happy with him playing the game with Kennedy, and they know damn well that any deal struck with the liberal senior senator from Masschusetts isn't going to be a good one. I know a lot of people thought that him teaming up with Russ Feingold to do campaign finance reform couldn't be all that bad. Yeah, right. Until we got knocked out of our chairs when McCain and Feingold thought it was cute to curtail our freedom of speech in an election cycle.
I hope this criticism does some good. I doubt it'll change his mind, but it could cause him to screw up again and put another stake in his attempt to become president.
Publius II