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Mediamatters.Org -
During the November 3 edition of
MSNBC's Morning Joe, NBC
chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell said that among the
"underreported things we've been talking among ourselves about that
we have not paid enough attention to is this dramatic shift in the Hispanic
vote." She went on to assert that "it is really a great irony, a
sad irony, for [Sen.] John McCain if it turns out this way because he was such
an early supporter. He lost his Republican base ... partly on supporting
immigration reform. And that endeared him to so many Hispanic voters, and now
they are shifting to Barack Obama." However, Mitchell did not note that
McCain reversed his position on immigration reform, aligning himself more
closely with the GOP base. McCain abandoned his support for the immigration bill he co-sponsored
with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), saying, during CNN's January 30
Republican presidential primary debate, that he would
no longer vote for it if it came up for a vote in the Senate. During the
debate, Los Angeles
Times staff writer Janet Hook asked McCain, "At
this point, if your original proposal came to a vote on the Senate floor, would
you vote for it?" McCain responded: "No, I would not, because we know
what the situation is today. The people want the borders secured first."
As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, McCain's position that "we've got to secure
the borders first" is at odds with his prior assertion that border security could not
be disaggregated from other aspects of comprehensive immigration reform without
being rendered ineffective.
In a June 20 Politico article, journalist Gebe
Martinez reported on McCain's reversal on immigration:
McCain,
the Arizona
senator, dismayed Latinos last year when he stepped back from his immigration
bill that would have tightened the borders and legalized undocumented
immigrants. As boos and hisses from angry Republican conservatives grew louder
at campaign events, he switched course and vowed to "first" secure
the borders. Were his failed bill to come up again, he would not vote for it,
he said.
[...]
Trying
to regain Latino support, McCain has chastised Republicans who stoke the fires
of the immigration at election time. And at a private meeting with Chicago-area
Latinos last week, he promised to push for a comprehensive immigration bill.
"It
sounds like he's trying to have it both ways, and it's not convincing
anyone," said Frank Sharry, who also was involved in immigration bill
negotiations when he headed the National Immigration Forum.
This is
not the McCain Hispanics thought they knew. Even after the 2001 terrorist
attacks placed an emphasis on national security, McCain's speeches to Latino
audiences and on the Senate floor prioritized the compassionate side of the
immigration argument.
He
understood that border security "first" means "deportation
only" in the eyes of immigrant activists, and he championed a broader
approach.
As the
Senate mulled immigration in 2006, McCain often stood in the Capitol's
corridors, pounding his fist in the air, arguing that border enforcement would
not work without simultaneously penalizing employers who hire workers
illegally, creating a temporary worker program and finding a way to bring 12
million illegal immigrants "out of the shadows" of society.
"It
won't work! It won't work!" he protested of suggestions to do enforcement first.
The stool cannot stand on one leg.
Mitchell joined other media figures on MSNBC who have ignored
McCain's immigration reversal or asserted that McCain has not changed his
position.
From the November 3 edition of
MSNBC's Morning Joe:
MITCHELL:
One of the other under -- underreported things we've been talking among
ourselves about that we have not paid enough attention to is this dramatic
shift in the Hispanic vote.
MIKA
BRZEZINSKI (co-host): Mmm-hmm. Absolutely.
MITCHELL:
What I think you're gonna likely see is -- and it is really a great irony,
a sad irony, for John McCain --
BRZEZINSKI:
Yes.
MITCHELL:
-- if it turns out this way, because he was such an early supporter. He lost
his Republican base partly -- partly on, of course, campaign finance reform,
but partly on supporting immigration reform. And that endeared him to so many
Hispanic voters, and now they are shifting to Barack Obama.
BRZEZINSKI:
It doesn't appear to be panning out for him.
CHUCK
TODD (NBC News political director): Obama has -- Obama has a three-legged stool
of young new voters, African-Americans, and Hispanics --
BRZEZINSKI:
Yes.
TODD:
-- and he's winning 'em all overwhelmingly -- three, two to one,
two-and-a-half to one. You put that together, you talked about the evangelical
advantage that Bush had in '04, it created this buffer --
BRZEZINSKI:
Right.
TODD:
-- it created a padding that he had so that he, he could lose swing voters.
That's what's going on with Obama. He can lose some voters in the
middle if they're race-sensitive, because he's got this incredibly
strong three-legged stool of support -- of base support -- that I don't
know, that McCain does not have the equivalent of.
Media Matters - Ignoring McCain's immigration reversal, NBC's Mitchell said "dramatic shift in the Hispanic vote" toward Obama is a "sad irony for John McCain" {...} Andrea Mitchell said it was "a great irony, a sad irony, for John McCain" that Hispanic voters are "shifting to Barack Obama" even though McCain "lost his Republican base ... partly on supporting immigration reform." But Mitchell did not note that McCain reversed his position on immigration reform, aligning himself more closely with the GOP base, or that McCain stated that he would not support his own reform bill if it came up for a vote in the Senate. {...} Published: November 3, 2008, 10:58 pm - Indexed: November 4, 2008, 12:21 pm - Page Size: 22KB |