Matt Ortega

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) spoke at the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) in which he continued to pander to Latino voters and obfuscate his constantly changing position on immigration.

In the appearance, McCain vowed to enforce the borders first and then claimed to support comprehensive immigration reform within a matter of minutes between each other.

The presumptive Republican nominee did not stop the “Pander Express” there. He later claimed to support the Immigration Reform & Control Act (IRCA) in 1986 but he, in fact, did not support it at all, found the Washington Times.

On Saturday, he mischaracterized his own record on the contentious 1986 amnesty law that continues to define the sides in the current debate. He told NALEO he “supported that legislation way back then,” when in fact he voted against it and was a critic.

The Arizona Republic newspaper in 1986 reported that he had called the bill racist and quoted him as saying the bill’s requirements for employers to verify workers “would institutionalize discrimination.” He said employers would refuse to hire Hispanics to avoid running afoul of the law.

After his speech Saturday, a McCain campaign official said the senator “was referring to his support for a comprehensive solution - going back to that time. He did oppose some provisions and didn’t end up voting for the bill - that’s a point of record.”

The one-time “maverick” senator from the southwest, John McCain has seriously fallen.

In his quest for the White House, John McCain flipped on the Bush tax cuts, privatizing Social Security, comprehensive immigration reform, offshore drilling, ethanol, Roe v. Wade, closing Guantanamo Bay, Jerry Falwell as an “agent of intolerance,” campaign finance reform, Grover Norquist, the estate tax, nuclear waste and Yucca Mountain, on the role of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and so on. The list seems endless, and continues to grow.

Last but certainly not the least — despite railing against the influence of special interests, his campaign is run by and for Washington lobbyists with some of the most unsavory client lists.

John McCain long ago abandoned the “independent streak” that he carefully crafted on the national stage. He will say and do anything to be president, and no previously-held political principle shall stand in his way.

El Nuevo Herald reported on the announcement from the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) that the proceedings in August will be simulcast on the internet in Spanish, but included one bizzare sentence, translated into English:

According to some surveys, the Hispanic vote appears to favor now the Republican candidate John McCain, who has a more favorable position than Obama to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants.

Marisa Treviño noted that simply is not what the facts show.

So far, according to poll after poll after poll on Latino presidential voting preferences, Obama is edging out McCain — in most cases by a lot. [...]

To maintain journalistic credibility, this newspaper needs to clarify the statement and/or produce the polls that show where this is true.

Otherwise, it clouds the real issue of which direction the Latino vote is leaning towards and creates false analysis for outcomes to scenarios that aren’t true in the first place.

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) continues to switch positions back and forth on immigration — depending on who the audience is — that former Republican presidential hopeful Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton, Colo.) sought clarification.

For more on the immigration plans of Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois), read here.

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) set off the anti-immigrant conservatives into another rage over his continuously changing position on immigration reform. Earlier this week, Senator McCain held secretive, closed door town halls with Latinos in Chicago. Invited to the event was Rosanna Pulido, State Director for the Illinois Minutemen Project, and she was not pleased with what she heard.

“I have friends in Washington, DC, on this issue,” she says. “We’ve had conversations on this issue.” After comprehensive immigration reform was killed in the Senate and McCain changed his rhetoric on the subject on the campaign trail, Pulido says, “we 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.”

So she went to the meeting, a room full of 150-200 people. “Sure enough,” Pulido says, “his mantra at the meeting was comprehensive immigration reform.’ And there were cheers and applause whenever he mentioned comprehensive immigration reform.”

“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.”

A few years ago, McCain drew the ire of the right-wing in the Republican Party because of his support for comprehensive immigration reform, but when his presidential campaign was floundering in the summer of 2007, he quickly changed his tune to curry favor with the base.

“I got the message,” McCain would tell crowds of conservatives in Iowa, South Carolina and other primary states. Asked if he would support the comprehensive immigration reform package he sponsored with Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), Senator McCain said he would not. In May, McCain reverted back to comprehensive immigration reform while speaking to business leaders that sent the right-wing blogs into a tizzy. In response, the McCain campaign attempted to put out the fires.

It appears that McCain is determined to sell his position on immigration as a two-for-one deal: tell the immigrant-bashing conservatives that you “got the message” and tell potential Latino voters silly, grade school-level anecdotes about Spanish being spoken in Arizona before English. (Duh.)