Immigration reform and the 2008 election

Earlier today, Kevin Johnson posted a link to the EP Times, and asked what role the immigration refrom debate would play in the mid-term election.  Today’s New York Times looks beyond the mid-term elections, and focuses on the role that the immigration debate (among other issues) will play in shaping the political fortunes of John McCain.

The article by Adam Nagourney notes that many conservative Republicans have already taken McCain to task for staking out a position on immigration reform that looks more moderate than the “security only” approach advocated by many House Republicans.  Although the Senate bill – championed by McCain and others – is far from “liberal” in its approach, that has not stopped the criticism from the right. 

Nagourney observes that many of those same critics are now criticisng McCain for taking a more expansive view than the President of the legal protections that ought to apply to alleged terrorist during their detention and interrogation.  The full Times article is here.

Of course, some have suggested that the ongoing antics between the White House and the Senate on the detainee issue is merely a “good cop-bad cop” strategy, designed to make the insufficiently protective Senate bill on detainees look “good,” comparatively.  Come to think of it, this sounds a lot like what happened with the immigration bill, with the Senate playing “good” cop to the House’s bad…..In both cases, McCain gets to be the “good guy,” even while serious questions exist as to how “good” these bills actually are.

-jmc