Posted on 06/04/2007 9:57:01 AM PDT by Sleeping Beauty
Senator John McCain, facing increasing anger from fellow Republicans over his support of the immigration bill in Congress, is ramping up his counterattack against a main rival in the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney, by accusing him of pandering for votes in opposing the measure.
Mr. Romney, in speeches and in early campaign commercials, has portrayed the proposal as being soft on illegal immigration a sensitive red-meat issue for the Republican base and condemned it as offering amnesty to illegal immigrants.
In fighting back, Mr. McCain is challenging Mr. Romney and other opponents of the Senates immigration plan to offer counterproposals explaining what they would do with the nations illegal immigrants, which he estimates could number 12 million. And his campaign has taken to pointing out what it calls Mr. Romneys shifting stances on immigration, and his lack of specificity on any workable alternative.
Mr. McCains speech is to be delivered today in Florida, where a large number of Cuban-American Republicans have a different perspective on the immigration issue. While he does not mention Mr. Romney by name in the speech, McCain advisers say Mr. Romney is the target of the criticism.
I would hope that any candidate for president would not suggest doing nothing, Mr. McCain plans to say. And I would hope they wouldnt play politics for their own interests if the cost of their ambition was to make this problem even harder to solve. To want the office so badly that you would intentionally make our countrys problems worse might prove you can read a poll or take a cheap shot, but it hardly demonstrates presidential leadership.
Pandering for votes on this issue, while offering no solution to the problem, amounts to doing nothing, Mr. McCain plans to say. And doing nothing is silent amnesty.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
to offer counterproposals explaining what they would do with the nations illegal immigrants,....The old nut. Just enforce the amnesty law of 1986.
Aww, c'mon ... he did sign the Declaration of Independence, after all; it's not as though he's completely anti-war.
” As far as I can tell, the “far” left Democrats and La Raza are against this bill.”
Well, they wrote the bill, so who are they to oppose their own handiwork?
This bill has a few bones thrown to conservatives. La Raza greedily wants not only amnesty for 12 million, but continued chain migration so another 20 million relatives of those 12 million can come in. They want the Mexicans to hog all the slots for immigration so we cannot have diverse high-quality immigration from aroud the world, but instead import the equivalent of Mexico City to the US. And let htem speak Spanish while they become dual citizens of US-Mexico. That’s what they want.
Once te Senate passes this bill the House will make a more left-wing version, and then into conference they will go, making mincemeat of whatever shreds of conservativeness in the bill.
The outcome will be horrible for anyone who wants an orderly immigration system. Great for La Raza though.
McVain hasn't seen his polling numbers see-saw with Romney.
Oh gawd, did you have to say that? Now I won't be able to erase that image.
Although I would not say that Mitt is inarticulate. His problem is that his sentences are too long -- with too many qualifiers. People on either side if the aisle end up thinking he's on their side. It's sort of weird.
Romney is very smart and very articulate. I dont think he’s a Dan Quayle, although this is only his third major race so he’s got some campaign learning to do (otoh, Bush only had 3 elections under his belt too).
You nailed it here: “Mitt Romney does not appear to have mastered conservative rhetoric”
He’s not a hard-right consrevative ideologue. He is doing more than any candidate I know in recent memory to position himself smack dab in the middle of the Republican party on all issues, though. How much is sincere and how much will be wiped away when he runs in the general or faces stiff media resistance?
This is why vague rhetoric does NOT cut it. “Where’s the beef?” We need Mitt to tell us what he believes we should do about it, not just bash the current bad bill.
If it (a) works and (b) he lives up to his promises and rules as he is running, it will be a thing of beauty to behold. Romney as Reagan? Or maybe that is letting hope triumph over experience. Too many people are pointing out his RINO heritage and convenient position shifts.
He's done enough to get a lot of positive exposure. McCain's attack on him is only going to elevate Romney in the eyes of the base, at least those who are not concerned about his religion.
I see this coming down pretty quickly to Romney vs. Thompson, with McCain and Giuliani receding to the middle tier.
Don't give up calling your reps and senators and complaining about the bill, however. There's still a slight chance they might listen. Right now Bush and his RINO contingent are not listening nor do they care for our conservative opinions.
It's probably because McCain and Romney don't consider him a serious threat. They know that he'll crash and burn as soon as voters get to know what he really stands for. It's the same reason why Hillary and Obama don't bother attacking Kucinich -- it's a waste of time.
“Standard propaganda. They wrote it, then they scream to the media that it’s evil and harsh while libmedia suppresses any mention of their authoring of it. Then the libmedia can be “balanced” and report that it’s equally opposed by both the Left and the Right so it must be just about right for the country.”
You are partly right. Taking the left position to an extreme so that a very liberal bill looks like a ‘compromise’ when it is nothing of the sort.
An additional factor is the
“Ask for twice of what you want, compromise to half of what you want, then whine and demand more after the compromise and say that it isnt enough.”
What La Raza is signalling is this: Once we give them the thing the liberals want - amnesty - the left will be more than happy to screw the conservatives on the paltry things they are doing to marginally make a few things better. The “tell” is in the timing of it all. They plan to change from chain migration, but are waiting 8 years to do it. Why? They need a backlog cleared. No doubt they will ‘fix’ that 8 years to 18 years and then forever, so La Raza keeps the chain migration forever.
Seriously, we conservatives really need to learn from the leftists and the Palestinians. They know how to make the other side compromise everything away without giving anything up.
Could make a good multi-choice question:
“I think the Bush/McCain/Kennedy immigration bill is the worst thing to happen to the Republic since ... “
(A) Jimmy Carter’s Presidency
(B) FDR’s New Deal
(C) Milli Vanilli
(D) The Civil War
(E) The Fall of Constaninople 500 years ago
“It’s probably because McCain and Romney don’t consider him a serious threat. They know that he’ll crash and burn as soon as voters get to know what he really stands for. It’s the same reason why Hillary and Obama don’t bother attacking Kucinich — it’s a waste of time.”
LOL... McCain is crashing and burning *RIGHT NOW* due to his horrible views on immigration.
As for Rudy, his polling is well above Kucinich. He is wrong for the party.
I for one can’t wait for the front runners to be Romney, Thompson and Hunter.
‘The entire article describes an interesting political gamble that McCain is launching today in Florida — by directly condeming Romney over immigration. ‘
McCain’s campaign is crashing, this is a hail mary at best. It won’t work, for the simple fact McCain was despised by conservatives - rightly so - for dozens upon dozens of issues, like CFR for example.
“The fact is — the immigration bill will probably pass ths week. Will this give McCain a political victory because he was “right” about current events? “
I’m not so sure the Amnesty bill will ever pass. We’ll see.
As for the second part, NO, it won’t make any difference. Even without the Amnesty bill, McCain had no chance of gaining the nomination. I suspect he’s recently realized that, and being McCain, he will now attempt to smear any GOP candidate that does have a chance....because he’s now in the same position Bob ‘Its My Turn, Damnit!’ Dole found himself in in 1996.
‘McCain is letting Bush be the wind under his wings — in matters where Bush has the power — Iraq and immigration. ‘
Pssssst. Even those of us that voted for the President twice don’t support his Amnesty bill, and we are pretty upset that the President in effect ‘coasted’ in Iraq til the day after he lost both the House and Senate. Firing Rummy the day after just made the ‘base’ even angrier, not to mention the House and Senate members think if it had been done BEFORE the election, they might have held onto one or the other.
‘What do you think?’
I think McCain is toast, and my President has lost his freakin mind.
“As you must recall, comments like this on Xlintonian triangulation used to be routine fare at FR. I hope more people learn to see through the machinations of the Left and libmedia.”
Our estwhile leaders do the Clinton-in-reverse... divide their own base, give something away to the Dems and hand them a policy and political victory all in one. Doh!
You nailed it! Enemedia opposition has all the sincerity of Br'er Rabbit begging not to be thrown in the briar patch.
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