Obama Tells Hispanic Leaders
McCain "Walked Away" from Immigration
Issue
WASHINGTON (By Amy Goldstein, Washington
Post) June 29, 2008 —
Sen. Barack Obama (D-ill.)
yesterday accused Republican Sen. John
McCain of retreating from a
comprehensive overhaul of immigration
laws the Arizona senator had championed
in Congress, contending that his rival
for the White House "walked away" from
his own legislation in order to win the
GOP presidential primary.
"When
he was running for his party's
nomination, he walked away from that
commitment," Obama told a gathering of
the National Association of Hispanic
Elected and Appointed Officials, at
which the two candidates appeared
separately to woo Hispanic votes.
The
broad immigration bill that stalled in
Congress ― which McCain co-sponsored
with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass) ―
would have pursued both goals at once.
But
he shifted his approach during the fight
for the party's presidential nomination
to emphasize the need to secure U.S.
borders before addressing the status of
undocumented immigrants. Beginning last fall, McCain began to
address the fact that political reality
dictates that stricter enforcement must
come first. The legislation "wasn't very
popular . . . in my party," he
acknowledged yesterday. "We will not
succeed in the Congress until we can
convince the majority of the American
people we have border security."
Obama
Walks Away from Immigration
"One place where Senator McCain used to
offer change was on immigration. He was
a champion of comprehensive reform, and
I admired him for it," Obama, an
Illinois senator who supported the
proposal, told the National Association
of Hispanic Elected and Appointed
Officials.
"But when he was running for his party's
nomination, he walked away from that
commitment. He said he wouldn't even
support his own legislation if it came
up for a vote," he said. "If we are
going to solve the challenges we face,
we can't vacillate, we can't shift
depending on our politics."
The
sparring over immigration erupted as the
two parties' presumptive nominees made
one of their first back-to-back
appearances at the same event in the
general election campaign. Their
immediate audience was the several
hundred Hispanic officials convened this
weekend at a downtown Washington hotel.
But the candidates' messages were
intended for Hispanics around the country,
who have emerged as the nation's largest
minority group and could prove a pivotal
constituency in the November elections.
During
the long Democratic primary period,
Obama drew significantly fewer votes
from Hispanics than his main opponent,
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Recent polls suggest that Obama has far
greater support within that group than
McCain. A Gallup Poll this month found
that 66 percent of Hispanics said they
favored Obama, while 29 percent said
they supported McCain ― far below the
estimated 40 percent of Hispanics who
voted for President Bush four years ago
in a record showing for a GOP
presidential candidate.
That
imbalance in support was evident in the
ballroom where the two men spoke
yesterday. McCain was interrupted three
times by anti-war hecklers, and the warm
applause he drew was eclipsed by long,
boisterous cheering that greeted Obama
when he took the stage a half-hour
later.
McCain
began his remarks by criticizing his
rival for not agreeing to share the
stage with him, a reference to the
series of joint "town hall" meetings he
has proposed, an invitation that Obama
has sidestepped so far.
Each
candidate sought to demonstrate that
Hispanics in particular would be
beneficiaries of his policies on a range
of issues, including health care,
education, trade and the Iraq war, in
addition to immigration. For his part,
Obama tried repeatedly in his remarks to
show Hispanic and African-American
voters ― groups whose political
interests have not always been aligned ―
have a common cause in his election.
Despite
yesterday's barbs, McCain and Obama's
views on immigration overlap to some
degree. Each supports stepped-up
enforcement of the nation's borders,
although Obama has been more critical of
a fence along the Mexican border the
Bush administration wants to build. And
both men, to varying extents, believe
undocumented citizens should be required
to surmount certain hurdles before
applying for citizenship, and wait in
turn behind legal immigrants who often
linger in limbo for years waiting the
government to review their applications.
Hispanics are the fastest growing
minority group in the United States and
account for about 9 percent of the
national electorate. They could be a
critical swing voting bloc in November
battleground states like Florida and in
the U.S. Southwest.
In 2004, President Bush won about 40
percent of the Hispanic vote — a
Republican record — in defeating
Democrat John Kerry. But opinion polls
show Republicans have been hurt with
Hispanics by the debate over immigration
reform.
Polls show Obama has rebounded among
Hispanics since clinching the Democratic
nomination. Many polls show McCain
falling short of Bush's 40 percent of
Hispanic support.
Obama, who will be the first black
nominee of a major U.S. political party,
stressed the groundbreaking nature of
his candidacy to the Hispanic group.
"I'm hoping that somewhere out in this
audience sits the person who will become
the first Hispanic nominee of a major
party," he said.
Speech interrupted
McCain was interrupted four times during
his speech and subsequent questions by
protesters who challenged his staunch
backing of the Iraq war.
Obama, who has called for a withdrawal
of U.S. combat troops from Iraq within
16 months of taking office, said
Hispanics had borne a heavy burden
during the war.
Both McCain and Obama
will speak next month to another
influential Hispanic group, the National
Council of La Raza, at its convention in
San Diego.
