RUSH: Saturday in Washington at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference McCain spoke. An unidentified person said, ‘Senator, you have been a leader on immigration reform in the Senate, but unfortunately congress has failed to make progress on this very critical issue. As the next President of the United States, will comprehensive immigration reform, not just enforcement, be one of your top policy priorities in your first 100 days?’
MCCAIN: It will be my top priority yesterday, today and tomorrow. And, my friends, we tried. I reached across the aisle to Senator Ted Kennedy — and by the way, I know that he’s in your prayers — and we worked in a bipartisan fashion and we were defeated. And by the way, it wasn’t very popular, let’s have some straight talk with some in my party and so I did that and worked together so that we could carry out a federal responsibility.
RUSH: How badly does he want to be president? Just how badly does he want to be? Has he not seen the latest polls on the Hispanic vote? ‘It will be my first, my top priority yesterday, today and tomorrow. I reached across the aisle to Senator Kennedy.’ He then said this.
MCCAIN: We have to secure our borders; that’s the message. But we also must precede with a temporary worker program that is verifiable and truly temporary. We must also understand that there are 12 million people who are here and they are here illegally and they are God’s children. They are God’s children and they will be treated in a humane fashion. Immigration reform will be my top priority because we have the obligation to address a federal issue from a federal standpoint. I will reach across the aisle again and work in a bipartisan fashion. We will resolve the immigration issue in America and we will secure our borders.
RUSH: I’ve heard him say this. He thinks that these are wondrous things to say. He thinks that these are very powerful comments because he thinks the American people are tired of gridlock, and that bipartisanship will get rid of gridlock. So he believes that the American people are going to embrace him for walking across the aisle to Ted Kennedy, reaching across the aisle to all these other Democrats because that’s going to somehow break gridlock and the American people want to get things done. Obama is basically trying to say the same thing by moving to the center on all these issues, flip-flopping from his positions in the primary campaign. I don’t know how seriously he wants to win this. I know he does. It’s just nonsensical. Moving on… I’m just blue in the face talking about this illegal immigration issue. There’s nothing more to be said about it. There’s nothing more to be said about the stupid politics of it. What did they not figure out after they tried this Amnesty Bill and it was wiped out by the American people? What did they not understand? It’s not even a question of that. They understand full well that what they are going to have to do is find an end run around the American people to get this done.