McCain’s revealing answer on Arizona and immigration: "AZ, CO, NM, Even TX Will ALL Be In Play"

[kpete]

*** McCain’s revealing answer on Arizona and immigration: Yesterday, one of us interviewed John McCain after he endorsed Romney at an event in New Hampshire. Toward the end of the interview, we asked McCain this question: Is Arizona in play in the general election? And his reaction was especially telling. He paused for a few moments and replied, “I think that if not this election cycle, the demographics are that Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, even Texas will all be in play.” McCain, who was once a principal architect of comprehensive immigration reform but who no longer supports it until the border is secured, added: “We have to fix our problems with the Hispanics.” Where does it start? “It starts with a way to address the issue of immigration in a humane and caring fashion -- at the same time emphasize the need to secure our borders.”

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/05/9974298-first-thoughts-here-come-the-attacks-on-romney

[LonePirate]

1. He is wrong again. CO and NM are safely blue this year. AZ is in play, though.

TX will likely be in play in 2016. So maybe he was half-right.

[UTUSN]

2. R#1 & K for the stopped-clock syndrome

ON EDIT: In sincere (not sarcastic) deference to Poster #1's observation, I'm modifying to HALF-stopped-clock.

[Vogon_Glory]

3. Arizona, Nevada, and Utah May Be In Play If...

Arizona, Nevada, Utah and other states may be in play if Rick Santorum gets the GOP presidential nomination. Santorum has been busted making anti-LDS comments within the last five years, and Arizona has a large Mormon minority, while Nevada and Utah have Mormon majorities. Since Mormons constitute a large percentage of the western right-wing vote, an anti-Mormon Republican candidate might make large numbers of Mormon voters feel less than enthusiastic about the Republican ticket come November.

Russell Pearce, a Mormon legislator, lost his safely-conservative seat in the Arizona state senate because the LDS church's feathers were ruffled by how Pearce's antics were affecting its relations with Hispanics. Maybe more feather-ruffling might inspire Great Basin voters to head for the sidelines or vote third party.

Democrats should take advantage of this. If the area Democratic Parties are on the ball, they'd be collating and collecting Santorum's anti-LDS remarks and then work up a pamphlet comparing Santorum's remarks to the virulently anti-Mormon remarks made by Missouri and Illinois politicians back in the 1830's and 1840's.

Of course creating and distributing such pamphlets goes against the grain of the national Democratic Party's let's-be-nice-and-say-nothing-controversial ethos.

[kemah]

4. Maybe not in play but will have to defend spreading the playing field

If the Democratic Party will spend a minimal amount of money in those states, then the GOP will have to spend more to defend them. Money and resources that will be diverted from other swing states. That's why Dean's 50 state program was so effective. Who knows when the GOP will run a defective self-exploding candidate?

[Vogon_Glory]

5. What Has Santorum Said About Immigration?

Assuming that Rick Santorum becomes the Republican Party's presidential nominee, wouldn't Santorum's comments concerning immigration ALSO become important in the presidential election?

If Santorum has already made anti-immigrant comments of the sort so fashionable among righties these days, some western states may be in play both because the Republicans offended Mexican-American voters AND members of the LDS church (Mormons being a large part of the Republican Party's voter strength out west).

[pampango]

6. If, John, you can scare more whites into voting for repubs than Hispanics that you alienate.

That must be their thought process as no repub candidate has done anything not designed to drive Hispanics away from their party.

[deacon]

7. Watching Twit & McLame endorsement, I wondered how many houses they have. All together what? 15? n/t