When John McCain’s presidential campaign faltered badly last summer, there were a variety of problems, but near the top of the list was McCain’s work on a comprehensive immigration reform measure, which most Republican activists hated with a vengeance. McCain ultimately decided to abandon his own legislation, and announced earlier this year that he wouldn’t even vote for his own bill.<\/p>\n
Now that he’s locked down the Republican nomination, McCain has decided to reverse course again<\/a>, re-embracing the position he abandoned in order to gain GOP support.<\/p>\n In yet another sign of his pivoting toward the general election, Senator John McCain said at a roundtable with business leaders here today that comprehensive immigration reform should be a top priority for the next president.<\/p>\n Mr. McCain’s willingness to address the issue was striking given how the topic became something of a third-rail for Republican presidential candidates during the primary. […]<\/p>\n Mr. McCain largely stopped talking about the issue and repeatedly invoked a mantra that he had gotten the message from voters that the borders needed to be secured first, before any solution for the illegal immigrants already here is addressed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sure, but that was when he was pandering to far-right activists, who he needed to get the GOP nomination. Now that he’s vanquished his Republican rivals, McCain feels comfortable pulling the hard-to-execute flip-flop-flip, gambling that conservatives will hate Obama enough to give McCain a pass.<\/p>\n Indeed, yesterday, speaking at a business roundtable in Silicon Valley alongside Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, McCain boasted of working with Ted Kennedy and said, “[W]e must enact comprehensive immigration reform. We must make it a top agenda item.” McCain went on to take an anti-deportation position on immigrants already in the U.S. who entered the country illegally, saying “they are also God’s children, and we have to do it in a human and compassionate fashion.”<\/p>\n McCain does so many reversals on this issue, I’m surprised he’s not dizzy. The far-right, meanwhile, is not amused. “Our nation’s immigration system is broken. And without comprehensive immigration reform, our nation’s security will remain vulnerable. That is why we must act.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n By November 2007, he’d given up on his policy and agreed to accept the conservative line<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift,” McCain told reporters Saturday after voters questioned him on his position during back-to-back appearances in this early voting state. “I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people’s priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That was his position in February 2008<\/a>, and as recently as last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n But now McCain no longer agrees with himself, and is back to supporting the approach he recently vowed to reject.<\/p>\n Conservatives aren’t responding to the news very well. Far-right blogger John Hawkins called<\/a> McCain a “liar,” adding, “He’s a man without honor, without integrity, who could not have captured the Republican nomination had he run on making comprehensive immigration a top priority of his administration.” Hawkins concluded he won’t support McCain in November.<\/p>\n
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\n2006 John McCain<\/a> was absolutely certain that a comprehensive approach to immigration reform was the only way to go.<\/p>\n