Already dropping in the polls, Republican presidential candidate John McCain could fall even further this week as the Senate resumes debate on an immigration bill despised by most conservatives.
“The immigration bill debate will haunt the McCain campaign until it’s completed, because every time it comes up somebody will identify McCain with both George Bush and Ted Kennedy,” said Bruce Gronbeck, director of the University of Iowa’s Center for Media Studies. “Those are not the bedfellows he can afford if he’s going to win the nomination.”
McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, and Democrat Kennedy, the senior senator from Massachusetts, are backing a plan to grant legal status to illegal immigrants. Many conservatives deride the plan as amnesty.
“You have to admire McCain’s commitment and consistency on immigration,” Democratic strategist Paul Begala said. “But it is killing him with the GOP base.”
McCain spokesman Matt David expressed stoicism about the fallout.
“To be candid and forthright here, the political consequences don’t matter,” he told The Examiner. “He’s going to put what’s best for the American people before any political aspirations that he has.”
This week’s debate is expected to pit McCain against fellow Republican senators who have vowed to block the immigration legislation. The fight has energized conservative talk radio hosts, who are exhorting listeners to oppose the bill.
“The immigration debate … seems to never end, and it’s cutting McCain’s tail off an inch at a time,” said political columnist David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register, which is an influential voice during the Iowa caucuses, a crucial early test of McCain’s presidential hopes. “He’d be better off politically if the issue were dropped.”
Many factors cloud the prospects for passage of the bill, including a reluctance among Democrats to hand a legislative victory to President Bush, who is furiously lobbying for the legislation. If it does pass, the legislation might prove even more damaging to McCain, according to a strategist for a rival GOP campaign.
“Republicans are pretty incensed with him already, but they would never forgive him for that,” said the strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “This bill would undoubtedly be a nightmare to implement, and every story about the bureaucratic mess that would ensue would be like political death by a thousand cuts for McCain.”
David said McCain has taken other controversial positions, including his early support for additional troops in Iraq.
“Pundits said his position and support of the new strategy in Iraq was going to hurt his campaign,” he said. “People are going to say those things, but it’s not going to change his position. He has principled positions, whether it’s on Iraq or immigration, and he’s going to stand by those.”
