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 Senate’s immigration plan to offer counterproposals explaining what they would do with the nation’s illegal immigrants, which he estimates could number 12 million. And his campaign has taken to pointing out what it calls Mr. Romney’s shifting stances on immigration, and his lack of specificity on any workable alternative.
Mr. McCain’s 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 wouldn’t 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 country’s 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 ...
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?
McCain is letting Bush be the wind under his wings -- in matters where Bush has the power -- Iraq and immigration.
What do you think?
I will not vote for McCain. I don’t care who runs against him.
A counter proposal, John? How about enforcing the existing law and truly securing our borders. Easy, huh?
No Republican nominee should try toboost his campaign by bashing another Republican. That just helps the Dems.
If that is McCain's strategy, he is in worse shape than I thought! It's amazing to me that McCain and Romney are spending so much energy fighting with each other, and totally ignoring the party's biggest flaw -- Rudy Giuliani.
"This Senate immigration bill falls short of the American public's expectations for a fair and workable solution on the problem of illegal immigration. Pressing on with a flawed approach that isn't equitable toward legal immigration is not a step in the direction towards progress.
Beats the hell out of amnesty!
McCain once again goes after the wrong target. And again, his plane will be shot out from under him.
Good answer by Romney, bad attack by McCain, as usual.
Man, these guys should stick to attacking Dims, OBL, and their MSM mouthpieces, hard, ruthlessly, relentlessly, till they draw blood.
Well, McCain said in Iowa that if we start deporting illegals we could have riots like in France. Guess he is more scared of the illegals than the American citizen.
That tells me all I need to know about him.
Hopefully MeCain will get mad and take his immigration bill home!
The immigration power Bush has is on the wrong side, no help to McCain on that one.
McCain has spent too many years fighting his own party and resonates with few out of the Beltway.
As far as Rooty goes, the conservatives will have to cook his goose, if you can pull him away from his next opportunity.
Its a shame the really good candidates are overlooked by the GOP.
Giuliani reminds me of the class nerd who trails after the popular kids as if he was part of the "in" crowd.
The popular kids are nice guys---they just ignore the nerd's efforts to look popular.
It is rumored that Rudy is headed over to the Vietnam memorial to claim that there was no need for those 58,000+ Americans to die, and he would have prevented that war. Then he is going up to Gettysburg and tell the Pennsylvania voters that there was far too much bloodshed there, and he would have stopped that, just as he did on 9-11. Did you know that Rudy was actually in New York City on 9-11?
McVain could at least be fair and attack Duncan Hunter too. His condemnations will only help Romney and Hunter could use the help more.
No, but I did know Jon Cary served in Vietnam and won 3 purple hearts in a matter of a few months.
LOL
“McCain said in Iowa that if we start deporting illegals we could have riots like in France.”
I’m not convinced that we won’t have them anyway.
First Purple Heart ever awarded to someone hit in his butt from ricochet effect of his own gun shot.
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