McCain voices optimism on immigration plan
Says his support for measure has affected campaign
Senator John McCain of Arizona said yesterday that he was "guardedly optimistic" that the Senate's controversial immigration legislation will pass Congress, and added that he has been stunned by the personal attacks on him from conservatives angry about the bill.
"I'm still hopeful we can get it done," McCain said in a wide-ranging interview with reporters and editors at the Globe.
McCain, who acknowledges that his outspoken support for overhauling immigration laws is complicating his presidential campaign, relayed a story about attending a recent fund-raiser where protesters were standing outside holding signs that declared: "McCain -- traitor."
"I'm a pretty tough guy, and I'm not asking for any sympathy," said McCain, a former Navy combat pilot who spent five years as a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down in Vietnam. But, he added, "you see something like that and you think, 'Wow, what would make these women . . . think I'm a traitor?' "
He also said the nature of the debate over immigration reflected the "deterioration of the political discourse in America today."
"It disappoints me so much," he said.
McCain said that several of his Senate colleagues had proposed "killer amendments" designed to scuttle the immigration plan. The bill, which has the support of President Bush, failed to advance on a key Senate vote earlier this month, but leading Democratic and Republican lawmakers say they will bring the legislation back to the floor in the coming days.
One of the toughest amendments, McCain said, is one that would require illegal immigrants to return to their home country before applying for a "Z visa," which the bill would create to allow them to legally work in the United States.
McCain said some of the proposed amendments had merit, making them especially threatening to a delicate compromise easily derailed by a last-minute change.
McCain said conservatives who want to focus exclusively on securing America's borders are missing a major part of the problem: that 40 percent of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States are here because they overstayed their visas, not because they entered the country illegally.
McCain, who first ran for president in 2000, finds himself in a crowded Republican field, one that is only getting bigger. In addition to facing rivals such as Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, McCain is now facing a challenge from former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, an old colleague from the Senate and actor on the NBC show "Law & Order." Thompson is poised to become the 11th Republican to enter the 2008 race.
As he did in 2000, McCain has staked his candidacy in part on his authenticity, often saying that it's more important to him to do what is right than to win an election. His support for overhauling immigration laws is hampering his outreach to conservatives, and his outspoken support for the war in Iraq appears to be pushing independents away from him.
At the Globe yesterday, McCain also talked at length about Iraq, reiterating his support for the president's plan to try to secure Baghdad with an additional 20,000 combat troops. He said none of the other proposed solutions for Iraq is a good one.
McCain said he "could not be more worried" about the prospect of peace between Palestinians and Israelis. He said that with fierce factional fighting among Palestinians, Iran's nuclear ambitions, and an emboldened Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shi'ite group, Israel is in greater danger now than it has been since its founding in 1948. 