Did you folks read the recent Politico headline regarding our Senator John McCain: "McCain fires back at Obama on immigration"? McCain is at it again with his toeing-the-party-line tactics, but facts are stubborn things.
McCain is trying to solely blame Obama when he knows damn well "Mr. [George W.] Bush placed telephone calls to lawmakers throughout the morning [of the immigration vote in 2007], but members of his party abandoned him in droves, with only 12 of the 49 Senate Republicans sticking by him on the key procedural vote that determined the bill's fate."
That said, this is simply McCain's attempt at politicizing the issue to garner more Latino votes for Romney -- but this is not going to happen unless the GOP does away with the anti-immigrant platform they adopted recently. But McCain lost his credibility among Latinos when he voted against the DREAM Act of December 2010. And now Mitt Romney has to be personally accountable for his promise to veto the DREAM Act.
Who should Latinos gamble their voting chips for?
It is important to look back at history to understand why American presidents have been reluctant to address immigration within their first term. Latinos should invest their vote in an incoming second-term president. Ronald Reagan didn't address immigration until his second term, and George W. Bush didn't address immigration until his second term, either. In fact, W. didn't think there was a problem with immigration at all when he was running as POTUS the first time.
The only president in American history who addressed immigration within his first term was President Benjamin Harrison, when he supported Ellis Island. He did not get reelected to a second term, and this occurred well over a century ago. Now President Obama gets to go down in American history as a president who gave relief to DREAM Act students within his first term, despite the fact that it was unpopular to be immigrant-friendly during a fever-pitch anti-immigrant era.
My Independent and Latina vote is for Obama this year, not necessarily because he is a Democrat but because the GOP has adopted an anti-immigrant policy that emulates Arizona's harsh S.B. 1070. The Republican Party has been thoroughly hijacked by the Dixiecrats and protectionists, while most Democrats are now toeing the party line in support of the DREAM Act and immigration. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have witnessed a surge in Independent voters, and now the Dems have to work harder at retaining the vote of the fastest-growing demographic in the country when Obama gets reelected.
Republicans like Senator John McCain continue to insult the intelligence of Latinos as they try to rewrite history. I suppose McCain forgot about the circulated mass mailer below when Romney and McCain were fighting it out during the Republican presidential primaries of 2008. I watched Mitt Romney systematically move Senator John McCain far to the right on matters affecting immigration during the 2008 GOP presidential primaries. If it had not been for Mitt Romney, Latinos may have felt more comfortable voting for John McCain over President Obama. I attribute McCain's loss of the Hispanic vote to multiple-choice Mitt Romney.
McCain has been in the Senate too long, and his apparent forgetfulness is causing me to be a strong believer in term limits. Besides, McCain is no longer an amigo, given that he decided to vote against the DREAM Act of 2010.
Mitt Romney's anti-immigrant mass mailer when he was attacking John McCain in 2008 (click to enlarge)