HOWARD LIPIN / Union-Tribune
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain
addresses the National Council of La Raza conference
at the San Diego Convention Center on Monday.
Posted on 07/14/2008 7:59:53 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO – Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday vigorously disputed his opponent's assertion that he had backed away from his own comprehensive plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.
“I do ask for your trust that when I say I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it,” the Arizona senator told the National Council of La Raza convention here. “I think I have earned that trust.”
On Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, told the same group at the San Diego Convention Center that McCain backed off his plan to appease conservative voters during the Republican presidential primaries.
Obama made similar assertions in recent addresses to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and the League of United Latin American Citizens. McCain also appeared before those groups.
“I did not use those occasions to criticize Senator Obama,” McCain said Monday. “I would prefer not to do so today. But he suggested in his speeches there and here, that I turned my back on comprehensive reform out of political necessity. I feel I must, as they say, correct the record.”
“At a moment of great difficulty in my campaign, when my critics said it would be political suicide for me to do so, I helped author with Senator (Edward) Kennedy comprehensive immigration reform, and fought for its passage,” the soon-to-be Republican presidential nominee said. “I cast a lot of hard votes, as did the other Republicans and Democrats who joined our bipartisan effort. So did Senator Kennedy. I took my lumps for it without complaint.”
At the beginning of his speech, McCain was briefly heckled be a pair of anti-war protesters. Anti-illegal immigration activists have long denounced McCain's plan as “amnesty.” A group of them picketed in front of the convention center as McCain spoke, as they did Sunday during Obama's appearance.
Dominic Harkay, 40, of El Cajon carried a picket sign that referred to McCain as “Juan McAmnesty”
“He's just pandering to the, quote, Hispanic community,” Harkay said. “He's saying one thing but doing another by trying to shove amnesty down America's throat.”
McCain, who recently returned from Mexico and Colombia, touted his support for the Colombian and Central American Free Trade Agreements as vital to the prosperity of the hemisphere. Obama opposes the trade agreements.
“While it is surely not my intention to become my opponent's scheduler, I hope Senator Obama soon visits some of the other countries of the Americas for the first time,” McCain said. “Were he to do so, I think he, too, would see that stronger economic bonds with our neighbors and the closer friendships they encourage are a great benefit in many ways to our country.”
Pandering to LaRaza. Disgusting.
My father-in-law keeps trying to convince me to vote for this pandering JACKASS.
However, this is politics. grow up.
No joke. Like it or not Hispanics make up an increasing part of the electorate. Why? Part of it is immigration and another aspect is that they breed. Liberal whites are aborting their babies, limiting themselves to one child per couple or having no kids at all.
Do the Republicans want to hand the Hispanic votes to the democrats? Might as well try to find some common ground.
I see no larger threat to America then the growth of purely race based political organizations, having seperate agendas normally centered around policies that are not inherently for the Public Good, this will lead us to a very polarized and dark place...
““I do ask for your trust that when I say I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it,” the Arizona senator told the National Council of La Raza convention here. “I think I have earned that trust.””
If there is any time when McCain is being absolutely truthful, it is when he is making promises to The Race, and its millions of cousins still outside the border.
Spanish, the New English
“However, this is politics. grow up.” and embrace betrayal.
Borders!!? We don’ need no stinking borders!!
Funny. No mention of his commitment to secure the borders. You don’t think they were trying to create controversy do you?
Why John, do you speak to a group with a blatantly racist name? Why no problem with an ethnic group that touts itself to be “THE RACE”? and has a desire to create Aztlan with your state, CA, NV and part of TX and UT?
Why the pandering John? What’s the damn frequency, Johnny?
I believe that he still intends to move forward with his shAmnesty bill.
He’s been quoted as saying it was “misunderstood” by Americans, that it’s not an amnesty plan at all.
I have looked high and low, including his website and speeches, and I find nothing to indicate that he has any plan other than an amnesty plan for illegal aliens in our Country.
Does anyone know of any plan he has for so called Immigration Reform, that does not include a “path to citizenship” for illegal aliens in our Country?
I really would like a well defined explanation from him on what, exactly, he wants to do and how he intends to go about it.
“Dominic Harkay, 40, of El Cajon carried a picket sign that referred to McCain as “Juan McAmnesty””
I wonder what his FReeper handle is? LOL
I’d like to see the original Spanish transcript of his speech. :)
55% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans are against Amnesty. Around five percent of the vote will be Hispanic. The only place the Hispanic vote will matter (to Juan) is in Florida. So Raster points out that Juan was on stage with a racist (Obama), pandering to racists (La Raza) for votes and you want him to grow up?
I think perhaps he has grown up, already, and perhaps you are unhappy with what he grew up to be, a Conservative? The Hispanic community is not La Raza any more than the White community is the KKK. Juan, quite simply looks like an idiot and is begging conservatives to hang him out to dry pulling this kind of nonsense.
If you are equating La Raza to the KKK (and I think you can on many levels), why is Johnny speaking to such a group? Just because the libs don’t treat them the same way they do the KKK, we have to give them a pass and say they are legit?
As another poster (I think correctly) pointed out, La Raza is not the entire Hispanic community, just as the KKK isn’t the entire white race.
Certainly go after Hispanic voters, just don’t legitimize La Raza to do so. It sends a confusing message at best, and loses other voting blocks at worst.
My apologies, your comment was to Norm, but my comment still stands. At least half of this thread is confusing La Raza with the Hispanic community. It just ain’t so, Joe. IF so, when do Obomba and Juan address Stormfront and the KKK? I mean we don’t want them alienating the White Community, right? One makes as much sense as the other.
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