Bienvenido, Soy John McCain

Posted on May 6, 2008

Whether it’s just window dressing or the opening salvo of a serious effort to court the Latino vote, John McCain has launched a Spanish-language Web site. While McCain was once a champion of immigration reform, he did a substantial bit of pandering during the Republicans-only leg of the campaign. In fact, he even said at one point that he wouldn’t vote for his own immigration bill.

Click here to get your John McCain fix en español.

Los Angeles Times / Opinion L.A.:

McCain will have to pull off an interesting balancing act as the general election nears: wooing crucial, increasingly Democratic-leaning Latino voters while roping in Republicans who favor tighter immigration policies. He got a bit of practice doing just that during Republican debates—goaded by single-issue long-shots Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, not to mention the back-and-forth between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee over who dared show compassion to immigrants.

But since last summer, when comprehensive immigration reform lost another round in Congress, McCain has moved further away from his original position, as expressed in a bill he co-sponsored with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Now McCain emphasizes a security-first approach and he has said he wouldn’t even vote for his original bill if it came up again in Congress (See The Times’ McCain endorsement for the editorial board’s take on that switch.)

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