McCain Joins Security-First Caucus on Immigration Debate

Just in time. (Ahem.)

Now, to be quite honest, when an immigration bill has its "key sponsors" noted as Kyl, Graham, and McCain, I'm kinda thinking it might not be quite as security-oriented as I'd like.

Still, let's at least acknowledge it as a half-bow in the direction of political sanity.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Thursday backed a scaled-down proposal that imposes strict rules to end illegal immigration but doesn't include a path to citizenship.

The move away from a comprehensive measure is an about-face for the Arizona senator, who had been a leading GOP champion of a bill that included a guest worker program and would have legalized many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. It failed earlier this year.

"We can still show the American people that we are serious about securing our nation's border," McCain said in a statement, adding that the new bill would "provide an essential step toward achieving comprehensive reform in the future."

...

Among other things, the bill makes being in the country illegally a criminal misdemeanor and toughens penalties for re-entering after being deported. It mandates an electronic system for employers to check workers' citizenship status and requires illegal immigrants who commit a crime to be held in jail until they are deported.

Honestly, guys, not to pimp my wares, all of this unpleasantness could have been avoided if you just read blogs. It's not as if there weren't early warnings lights blinking like short-circuiting Christmas trees or anything.

Am I so smart? No. But every day I basically take a (non-scientific, self-selecting) survey of public opinion. We all watch our traffic figures so we know when we're gaining audience and we know when we're bleeding audience.

The entire right of the blogosphere hit the panic button as hard as we could and warned you, explicitly, not to do this. I and commenters were basically pleading to not do this, or else you'd lose our votes and we'd lose a major party affiliation (which is important to us, too).

You didn't listen. You just kept on pushing it through, hoping you could ram it past everyone before public opinion caught up to you.

The conservative blogosphere isn't like Kos, dudes. As a general rule we're much more moderate than the leftwing blogs. We're not terribly far, collectively, from dead-bang center. Just shooting a bit to the right.

If no one's writing passionately about an issue, do whatever you want on it.

If everyone's writing passionately on an issue, but there's an even divide, be very careful -- you just spotted a big fat wedge issue.

If everyone's writing passionately on an issue and everyone's pretty much on the same side -- well, this is not a time for "voting your conscience," not as long as you also envision a future in politics.

Thanks to tmi3rd. Who's in the media.

Let's get him.

posted by Ace at 08:51 PM

| Access Comments