Listen To McCain - By Editorial, Arizona Republic

December 12, 2007

Article Excerpt

For years, John McCain railed against the evils of pork-barrel politics, yet his fellow Republicans failed to listen.
And, in November 2006, voters, aghast at the GOP's self-serving spending habits, came for them.

For crucial years, too, following the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, McCain argued for more troops on the ground and a more aggressive posture against insurgents. And, again, fellow Republicans - in this case George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld - failed to pay heed.

For them, the pollsters came, as heralds of a populace sick of a costly, bloody, losing conflict.

Now, McCain's persistence against the grain is drawing attention to yet another trap into which the GOP is flinging itself. He is warning his fellow Republican presidential candidates that their vitriol against illegal immigrants is getting wildly out of hand.

And if the candidates fail to see their growing extremism on immigration as many Hispanics are coming to see it - as a rejection of them - then real catastrophe is awaiting Republicans in 2008.
"You know, this whole debate saddens me a little bit because we do have a serious situation in America," McCain said at the YouTube debate in Florida late last month. "We need to sit down and recognize these are God's children, as well."

As next month's primary races come closer and as the pressure intensifies for Republicans to appeal to the party base that will vote in those elections, several of the Republican contenders are battling to out-tough each other on issues of immigration.

If the stakes weren't so high, the preposterous accusations and recriminations would seem simply silly. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani attacked former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for hiring illegal aliens to cut his lawn and pull his weeds. Romney hammered Giuliani for not aggressively targeting illegal immigrants in New York . . . something he certainly didn't try himself in Massachusetts.

As The Republic's Dan Nowicki, who was reporting from the scene, noted, all the flying recriminations over Boston gardeners and suspiciously foreign Hispanics on New York street corners made it infinitely easier for McCain to assume some higher ground on immigration reform.

It may be fair to say that John McCain has transgressed Republican positions a few times over the years. Campaign financing, tax cuts and, yes, immigration reform come to mind.

But it also is quite evident that McCain's consistent and principled positions on then-unpopular issues - like curbing federal spending; like "surging" troops in Iraq - also have proved wise over time.

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