Blue Spot

Obama overstates his role on immigration :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Lynn Sweet

WASHINGTON -- No matter if you are—or are not — voting for presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), he deserves credit for trying to forge a bipartisan deal on immigration in 2005 and 2006 at great personal political risk, a situation unfamiliar to rival Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)

McCain put his comeback presidential bid in peril because of his leadership role with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to find a path for millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S.

The Kennedy-McCain legislation stalled in 2006, because the hardline pro- and anti-immigration forces preferred the status quo to a compromise. Another try in 2007 — in a bill backed by McCain and Obama — also failed.

McCain and Obama, wooing Hispanic voters, each has made clear in recent appearances before the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and the League of United Latino American Citizens a few days ago that he would make immigration reform — and legalizing the status of millions of illegal immigrants — a priority if elected president. I expect each to send the same message at the upcoming National Council of La Raza conference in San Diego, where Obama speaks Sunday and McCain on Monday.

In the meantime, Obama on the campaign trail inflates his leadership role — casting himself as someone who could figure out how to get something done. Obama “did not absolutely stand out in any way,’’ said Margaret Sands Orchowski, the author of “Immigration and the American Dream: Battling the Political Hype and Hysteria,” and a close follower of the legislation.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a McCain ally and a key player on immigration, said Obama was around for only a “handful” of meetings and helped destroy a 2007 compromise when he voted for making guest worker visa programs temporary. A permanent guest worker program was to be a trade for a legalization program to cover many illegal immigrants.

“When it came time to putting that bill together, he was more of a problem than he was a help. And when it came time to try to get the bill passed, he, in my opinion, broke the agreement we had. He was in the photo op, but he could not execute the hard part of the deal,” Graham said,” Graham said.

Labels: Immigration, Latino community, McCain, Obama

Tale of two speeches: Latino crowd gives polite applause to McCain, standing ovation to Obama

(07-08) 18:39 PDT Washington - -- Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has called on his Democratic rival Barack Obama to meet him face to face in town hall-style debates across the country. It was easy to see why today after the two gave competing speeches to crowd of prominent Latinos.

McCain, a four-term Arizona senator well known and respected by Hispanics, gave a stock economic speech repeated word for word from the day before. He won only polite applause.

Obama, largely an unknown among Latino votes only months ago, drew a standing ovation after delivering a rousing populist speech aimed directly at their core concerns - immigration, education and health care.

Lidia Pope, a Cuban American who lives in Virginia and works for the federal government, said she was leaning toward McCain before hearing Obama address the League of United Latin American Citizens. She said she would be listening to Obama very carefully, looking for specific plans and ideas. "This is not any old election," she said. "People are worried."

After hearing Obama, Pope was more than impressed. "He was so energetic," she said. "I think he understands the issues."

McCain finds himself pinched between his sponsorship of a major immigration overhaul that failed last year in the Senate and his need to disown his own immigration bill that was loathed in his party.

The legislation would have offered a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. When the bill came up for a vote, McCain largely left the fight to others as he devoted his time to running for president. He finally said in a Republican debate this year that he would not vote for his own bill now but would work on border security first.

That left him today with a three-paragraph addendum to his speech, seemingly tacked on for his audience, where he addressed his admiration for the "patriotism, industry and decency" of the nation's Hispanic citizens and read over a line where he promised "to honor their contributions as long as I live."

Obama, who struggled to win Hispanics during the primaries and played a minor role in the immigration debates, said he had "reached across the aisle in the Senate to fight for comprehensive immigration reform." In fact, while Obama sponsored some amendments, he was not a key negotiator and mainly stuck to the party line. If anything, his amendments and others he supported undermined the fragile bipartisan coalition backing the bill.

His claim that he was deeply involved sends Republicans who were there into apoplexy. "Obama was consistently, absolutely AWOL" during negotiations over the bill, said Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, on a McCain campaign conference call.

A recent Gallup survey showed Obama making huge inroads into the Latino electorate, which gave an estimated 40 percent of its vote to President Bush in 2004. Republicans have long argued that their party has a natural appeal to Hispanics, the nation's largest and fastest growing minority group, who are mostly Catholic and culturally conservative with a strong entrepreneurial streak. McCain's outspoken support of citizenship for illegal workers and intimate familiarity with border issues in Arizona gave him a strong base to build on. Yet as of July 2, Obama was leading McCain 59 percent to 29 percent among Hispanic registered voters.

Obama promised to enact immigration reform by the end of his first term, and reminded the crowd today that he had backed controversial positions on immigration during the Democratic debates, referring to his support for giving drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants "when it was uncomfortable" to do so. Calling Hispanics an "aspirational community," he said there is no conflict between "excellence and diversity," touting his youthful work among poor minority groups in Chicago.

The election, he said, is "about making sure our government knows that when there's a Hispanic girl stuck in a crumbling school who graduates without learning to read or doesn't graduate at all, that isn't just a Hispanic-American problem. That's an American problem."

Cries of "si se puede" rang out from the crowd. Click here to read more.

Labels: General Election 2008, Immigration, Latino community, McCain, Obama

Spitzer to drop immigrant license plan - Life- msnbc.com

WASHINGTON - New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer said Wednesday he was abandoning a plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, but said that the federal government had “lost control” of its borders and left states to deal with the consequences.

“I have concluded that New York state cannot successfully address this problem on its own,” Spitzer said at a news conference after meeting wtih members of the state’s Congressional delegation.

Spitzer said overwhelming public opposition led to his decision.

Labels: Immigration, Spitzer

Tavis Smiley takes on a heated African-American, anti-immigrant caller on C-Span, upset that the issue was not brought up at the debate.

Labels: Immigration

Conservative pundit and author, Pat Buchanan debates Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez on "Meet The Press."

Labels: Immigration

GOP rivals split on immigration measure - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - The immigration fight in Congress has spilled over onto the presidential campaign trail. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) is trying to sell the skeptical GOP base on contentious Senate legislation while Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and other Republican rivals oppose it.

"This immigration reform is an issue of national security," McCain, an Arizona senator, said Wednesday, stressing more secure borders and what he called an urgent need for the United States to know the identities and whereabouts of millions of illegal immigrants.

In White River Junction, Vt., Giuliani derided the legislation as an inadequate "hodgepodge" that "kind of goes in 10 different directions without any central focus." And Romney, who says the bill amounts to amnesty for illegal immigrants, said in Tulsa, Okla.: "Let them apply like everybody else in the world."

Labels: Immigration