WASHINGTON – Presidential rivals John McCain and Barack Obama vied yesterday for the support of Latinos, beginning a four-month courtship of a pivotal voting constituency by vowing to revamp immigration policy.
“I come from a border state, my dear friends. I know these issues,” McCain told Latino elected officials. The Republican senator from Arizona said overhauling the country's broken immigration system, not just securing its borders, “will be my top priority.”
Appearing later before the same audience, Obama accused McCain of walking away from comprehensive immigration reform. The Democratic senator from Illinois said: “We must assert our values and reconcile our principles as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. That is a priority I will pursue from my very first day.”
The two spoke separately to about 700 Latinos attending the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference. It's the first of three such appearances each is scheduled to make to Latino organizations in less than a month, underscoring the importance of the nation's fastest-growing minority group.
McCain and Obama were warmly received at the conference. The crowd gave each standing ovations and cheered loudly.
When McCain spoke, the audience shouted down anti-war protesters who interrupted the Republican's speech four times. The audience chanted Obama's name when the Democrat entered later. As he took the stage, Obama said, “Si, se puede!” – his “yes we can” campaign slogan in Spanish – and the crowd echoed him.
A recent AP-Yahoo News poll showed that Obama leads McCain among Latinos, 47 percent to 22 percent, with 26 percent undecided.
Still, Obama, who is trying to become the first black president, doesn't have a lock on this volatile group. During the Democratic primary, Latinos preferred rival Hillary Rodham Clinton to Obama by nearly 2-to-1.
McCain, for his part, senses opportunity and is hoping to build on Republicans' recent inroads in this Democratic-trending group.
President Bush captured about 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2004, the most ever for a GOP presidential candidate.
His Democratic rival that year, John Kerry, won 53 percent, down from the 62 percent former Vice President Al Gore got in 2000.
This year, immigration reform, a touchstone issue for Latinos, is a wild card.
McCain and Obama support an eventual path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the country illegally, and thus the issue isn't expected to be a major point of differentiation in the campaign. Still, Latinos will be paying careful attention to what's said on the subject.
McCain co-sponsored broad, bipartisan Senate legislation last year that would have overhauled the immigration system and improved border security. The legislation split the GOP, and critics pushed for a border-enforcement-only approach. After the measure failed, and in the heat of the Republican nomination race, McCain emphasized the need to secure the borders first before enacting other reforms, which he said were still needed.
