{"id":15943,"date":"2008-06-20T15:55:25","date_gmt":"2008-06-20T19:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15943.html"},"modified":"2008-06-20T15:55:25","modified_gmt":"2008-06-20T19:55:25","slug":"jukebox-john-mccain-every-four-minutes-he-changes-his-tune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/jukebox-john-mccain-every-four-minutes-he-changes-his-tune\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Jukebox John’ McCain — every four minutes, he changes his tune"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it appears that John McCain’s immigration policy is dependent entirely on who he happens to be talking to at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., met Wednesday evening with Hispanic Republicans in Chicago. In an Associated Press story about the meeting, one quote jumped out at me: “He’s one John McCain in front of white Republicans. And he’s a different John McCain in front of Hispanics,” Rosanna Pulido, a Latina who heads the Illinois Minuteman Project, told the AP. <\/p>\n

“He’s having his private meetings to rally Hispanics and to tell them what they want to hear,” she said. “I’m outraged that he would reach out to me as a Hispanic but not as a conservative.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pulido is probably not your typical Minuteman Project member. Though her parents were from Mexico, she was born in the U.S., and has become a staunch opponent of illegal immigration. She hoped to hear McCain last night reiterate the position he took on immigration policy late last year (well, one of the many positions).<\/p>\n

“I have friends in Washington, DC, on this issue,” she told ABC’s Jake Tapper<\/a>. “We’ve had conversations on this issue.” McCain abandoned his own immigration bill after it was killed in the Senate a year ago, and Pulido was optimistic, saying, “[W]e were hopeful after John McCain started saying, ‘I understand where the American people are coming from, there’s gotta be enforcement first,’ we thought great, he’s had a change of heart.”<\/p>\n

“Sure enough,” Pulido said, “his mantra at the meeting was comprehensive immigration reform.’ And there were cheers and applause whenever he mentioned comprehensive immigration reform.”<\/p>\n

“Then he said, ‘I bet some of you don’t know this — did you know Spanish was spoken in Arizona before English?’ And the crowd roared. I was appalled,” Pulido said. “He was pandering to these people — that’s what they wanted to hear.”<\/p>\n

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with emphasizing different issues in front of different audiences, but McCain’s habit is far worse — he embraces an entirely different policy agenda depending on the audience.
\n
\nAt this point, one would like to think McCain knows by now that he needs to stick to at least one of his positions on this fairly important policy. About a month ago, in a relatively high-profile speech in California, McCain went back to the position he’d given up to win the Republican nomination, boasting about having worked with Ted Kennedy and argued<\/a>, “[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

Soon after, far-right activists were apoplectic, especially given McCain’s repeated assurances during the primaries that he’d given up a “comprehensive” approach to immigration reform. So, the day after his speech, McCain reversed course yet again<\/a>. And then yesterday, he switched back. Again.<\/p>\n

For those keeping score at home, McCain does not support<\/a> “comprehensive immigration reform.”<\/p>\n

Yes, he does<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No, he doesn’t<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yes, he does<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No, he doesn’t<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yes, he does<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No, he doesn’t<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And as of yesterday, he does again.<\/p>\n

Nearly all of these, by the way, come from the last six months.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, in terms of my issue priorities, immigration reform is relatively low. But I know for Republicans, it’s among the most important issues, if not the<\/i> most important domestic policy issue. And yet, here’s the Republican nominee, running on a platform of consistency, shifting with the wind and changing his position from day to day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it appears that John McCain’s immigration policy is dependent entirely on who he happens to be talking to at the time. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., met Wednesday evening with Hispanic Republicans in Chicago. In an Associated Press story about the meeting, one quote jumped out at me: “He’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}