The Real McCain on Race and Immigration

[marmar]

from AlterNet's PEEK:



The Real McCain on Race and Immigration

Posted by Sara Robinson, Group News Blog at 9:47 AM on April 10, 2008.

It's not a pretty picture.



Our buddy Cliff Schecter has been hard to miss the past couple days. The buzz over his forthcoming book, The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't, has been heard even beyond the sheltered garden of liberal blogdom, and is now hitting the mainstream media with the thunder of an oncoming B-52.

And well it should. Cliff's got a hell of a tale to tell. Actually, perusing my advance copy, he's got several of them. His indelicacy in chewing out his wife -- you know, the one whose large personal fortune has made McCain's career possible -- and calling her the c-word in front of reporters is the story all over the front pages right now. But there's more. Much more.

The larger point that runs throughout Cliff's book is that Senator Straight Talk has a long record of being anything but. On any issue you can name, he's hemmed and hawed and twisted himself around to fit whatever group he was currying favor with (or taking funding from) on any given day. (That, in the end, is why conservatives don't trust him, and nobody else should, either.) And that habit absolutely extends to his record where issues like race and immigration are concerned.

McCain on Immigration: Way out front -- then nowhere to be seen

McCain's home state of Arizona has been ground zero in the immigration wars, so you'd expect the state's most visible national politician would have a strong voice and a well-considered and consistent point of view on this issue. And so he has -- right up until he started running for president.

On the plus side, he seems to clearly understand that the GOP's obsession with the issue is devastating its future prospects with the growing pool of Hispanic voters. He knows that building fences is futile. He came out against a draconian 2004 state initiative in Arizona that would have denied all public services to undocumented immigrant. The state's conservatives returned the favor by trying to pass a state resolution censuring McCain for refusing to cave into their racist demands. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/81978/

[Virginia Dare]

1. He spent his formative years on a plantation in Mississippi..

in the 1940's and 50's, so it's not hard to figure out what his frame of reference is there.

[Kurovski]

2. K&R

We should dig up all the stuff Republicans said about McCain when he ran against Bush in the 2000 primaries.

I chiefy remember the charges "hot-tempered" and "nuts".

But there is so much more.