“Over the top” McCain furiously rebukes Hispanics (“you people”) for not supporting him

According to an amazing article in National Journal,

John McCain sounds angry and frustrated that, despite the risks he took in pushing immigration reform, Hispanic voters flocked to Democrat Barack Obama in last year’s presidential contest. McCain’s raw emotions burst forth recently as he heatedly told Hispanic business leaders that they should now look to Obama, not him, to take the lead on immigration.

I can’t believe it! It turns out that Hispanic voters’ greater than two-to-one support for Obama despite McCain’s fanatical leadership in favor of open Hispanic immigration actually bothers McCain! This violates the order of the universe. Pro-open borders Republicans are NEVER supposed to notice it when their assiduous, selling-out-America courting of Hispanics results in continued Hispanic landslides for Democrats. They are supposed to keep trying to win over Hispanics via support for unlimited Hispanic immigration until America has a Hispanic majority, the Democrats have permanent lock on Washington, the Republican Party has died, and America has died. McCain had better get back with the Republicans-for-open-borders program. This is one type of maverick behavior that will not be allowed.

James P., who sent the item, writes:

What I get out of this is not any sense that McCain has changed his mind about the merits of Hispanic immigration—he still thinks it’s a Good Thing—just that he’s not going to take the lead on it politically. If Obama and Kennedy set up another shamnesty, I expect McCain to be their obedient catspaw and crack the whip on the Republican side of the aisle just like last time. Best case outcome for him is that he gets the shamnesty that he wants but the Democrats take the political heat for it. Yes, the Democrats will also get the political credit for it from Hispanic voters, but since they get that anyway, that’s no big deal as far as McCain’s concerned.

I would add that the article shows that immigration restrictionists were correct not to vote for McCain, as he would have been far more aggressive in pushing open borders than Obama has so far been.

Here is the article:

McCain Rebukes Hispanic Voters
Stung over the voting bloc’s 2-to-1 support of Obama in November, the senator says to look to the new president for immigration leadership.
by Kirk Victor
Saturday, April 4, 2009

John McCain sounds angry and frustrated that, despite the risks he took in pushing immigration reform, Hispanic voters flocked to Democrat Barack Obama in last year’s presidential contest. McCain’s raw emotions burst forth recently as he heatedly told Hispanic business leaders that they should now look to Obama, not him, to take the lead on immigration.

The meeting in the Capitol’s Strom Thurmond Room on March 11 was a Republican effort led by Sens. McCain of Arizona, John Thune of South Dakota, and Mel Martinez of Florida to reach out to Hispanics. But two people who attended the session say they were taken aback by McCain’s anger.

What began as a collegial airing of views abruptly changed when McCain spoke about immigration, according to these sources, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. Anonymity was also requested by a third source, who was not at the meeting but was told, independently of the other two, that McCain had displayed his notorious temper.

“He was angry,” one source said. “He was over the top. In some cases, he rolled his eyes a lot. There were portions of the meeting where he was just staring at the ceiling, and he wasn’t even listening to us. We came out of the meeting really upset.”

McCain’s message was obvious, the source continued: After bucking his party on immigration, he had no sympathy for Hispanics who are dissatisfied with President Obama’s pace on the issue. “He threw out [the words] ‘You people—you people made your choice. You made your choice during the election,’ ” the source said. “It was almost as if [he was saying] ‘You’re cut off!’ We felt very uncomfortable when we walked away from the meeting because of that.”

In 2006 and 2007, McCain was a leader on immigration, but his efforts ran aground largely because his legislation included what many Republicans derisively characterized as “amnesty,” a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants if they took a series of steps to earn legal status.

Having stuck his neck out in the past, McCain apparently is in no mood to do so again for an ethnic group he seems to view as ungrateful. On NBC’s Meet the Press on March 29, McCain repeated his message that the ball is in the Democratic president’s court. So far, the senator said, he has not seen much on immigration from the Obama White House, although the president recently met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and set the goal of launching the debate in the fall, a senior administration official said.

Asked on the show whether he would work with Obama on the issue, McCain said, “At any time, I stand ready. But the president has to lead.”

McCain, who declined through his spokeswoman to be interviewed about his meeting with the Hispanic leaders, has been dogged throughout his career by stories highlighting his sometimes fierce temper. Both Martinez and Thune take issue with those who said that McCain raged at the group.

“What I saw… was John McCain saying, ‘Look, I didn’t get a lot of support from the Hispanic community,’ which he deserved to have had,” Martinez said. “It frustrated me. It frustrated him. [McCain said,] ‘You guys thought this guy [Obama] was going to be your savior. Where is his leadership?’ I sort of echo that. It’s not like [the meeting] went badly, I don’t think.”

How did people attending the session react to McCain? Martinez said, “I think they thought he’s still smarting a little bit. But I don’t think they felt threatened or attacked or anything like that. I don’t think so. My sense is the meeting was not ruined by John in any way, shape, or form.”

Martinez, who is Hispanic, continued, “John is John. Sometimes when he talks, he talks forcefully. He wasn’t ranting or raving or anything. I have seen John rant and rave. I don’t think this was one of those moments.”

Thune agreed: “It was a spirited discussion, but this sort of incendiary-type way that some people are characterizing it just doesn’t fit at all the tone of the meeting.” In fact, he added, “after it was over, [the guests] were taking photos [with the senators]. They were handing out business cards.”

Carlos Loumiet, chairman of the board of the New America Alliance, a nonpartisan organization of American Latino business leaders, attended and said he has “nothing negative to say.” McCain, he added, was “forceful on the need to bring forth comprehensive immigration and for the president to lead on it…. He was just very direct and very forceful.”

McCain’s communications director, Brooke Buchanan, also disputed the notion that her boss’s temper had flared at the meeting. She did not attend, but said she had been briefed at length about it.

Buchanan noted McCain’s history of pushing immigration reform in the face of staunch opposition from many in his party, his work across the aisle with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and his popularity among Hispanics in Arizona.

She insisted that the 72-year-old senator’s use of the words “you people” was in response to a question about people in general who had voted for Obama and was not meant to refer to Hispanics. To imply otherwise, she said, is “character assassination.”

Buchanan said McCain was not angry and was simply offering “a little bit of ‘straight talk,’ ” the senator’s pet phrase for his candor. “He gets impassioned about some of these issues, and that is one of them…. Whenever anyone wants to hurt McCain, they say he is angry.”

But one person’s straight talk is another person’s vitriol. “My hands were shaking,” one source said. “I was nervous as no-end.” The senator’s comments went on for several minutes at least. And by the end of the meeting, another participant, who had supported McCain in last year’s presidential election, was so shaken by the display of temper that he decided it is good that McCain isn’t in the White House.

McCain has become irate over immigration legislation before. During negotiations over a bill two years ago, he was so enraged by the comments of Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, that he got in Cornyn’s face and said, “F—you!”

“The F.U. story, which was, like, how long ago?” Buchanan asked. “Yes, it happened, but can anyone give me any other circumstance on any subject where that happened [since then]? And, frankly, [Cornyn and McCain] work together; they campaigned for each other…. As you know, he is an impassioned guy, but he has never lost his temper in the last couple of years.”

“To suggest that somehow or another that this ended up as a blown-up meeting and people were upset and that McCain was ranting or anything like that, I just don’t think that is accurate or the truth.”—Sen. Mel Martinez

Going forward, some of McCain’s allies question whether Obama will be willing to lead on immigration, especially given what they saw as his failure to take risks to advance immigration reform when he was a senator. “He was AWOL most of the time,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said of Obama in an interview in July. “I learned a lot about Obama on immigration, and it wasn’t good. I learned that to talk about bipartisan change and to stick by a bipartisan deal are two different things. He came by several times, more [for] the photo ops. The only time he came by, he wanted to re-litigate something that had already been decided.”

Asked recently whether he would be surprised that McCain’s feelings about Hispanic voters and immigration legislation sound very raw, Graham, who also took risks in backing the legislation, which was very unpopular in South Carolina, said: “John understands politics. But he is a human being, like all of us, and it is disappointing because he really was the driving force on the Republican side… to produce a bill that would solve this problem. And the groups that were cheering him on were gone when he needed them.”

Hispanics gave Obama a whopping 67 percent of their votes, more than double the 31 percent they gave to McCain. A former colleague of McCain’s, Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who opposed immigration reform, told National Journal, “John risked a lot to go out there and do what he did. They basically turned their back on him, a guy who had done a lot more for them than Barack Obama ever would. So I can understand his anger, but I also know that John doesn’t get over things easily.”

But Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said in an interview that Hispanics’ support for Obama was not a repudiation of McCain, who is highly regarded in the Latino community, but a repudiation of the Republican Party. “His party was his worst enemy in trying to reach out to the Latino community,” Becerra said. “Left to his own devices, I think Senator McCain could have done very, very well—and still could do well—in the Latino community.”

Martinez, upon learning—in his words—that National Journal was “getting a story that people were upset” about McCain’s behavior at last month’s meeting, called to elaborate on his earlier comments. “He did not offend people in that room,” Martinez declared. “It was a cordial meeting. And, I think as I told you, John made his point about ‘Obama needs to deliver, just like he promised that he would,’ and that kind of thing. But, I mean, to suggest that somehow or another that this ended up as a blown-up meeting and people were upset and that McCain was ranting or anything like that, I just don’t think that is accurate or the truth.

“I just don’t want you to get misled by someone who is trying to screw McCain here, frankly, because he doesn’t deserve it,” Martinez added.

- end of initial entry -

Howard Sutherland writes:

There probably isn’t a thing in the world I agree with Cuban interloper Mel Martinez about, and that’s certainly true of what he says in the last sentence of the article.

David B. writes:

Not long ago, I wrote to you my opinion that as bad as Obama is, our situation would have been far worse with McCain as President. This is more confirmation.

A prediction. If this story is played up, look for McCain to make a big apology for “offending Hispanic business leaders.”

LA replies:

Yes, he allowed his “bad side” to get control of him once again, and now he will have to repent, by trying even harder to please Hispanics and fighting even harder for open borders.

Josefina writes from Argentina:

I would have never believed McCain could be so pathetic. Complaining that he didn’t receive as much support from the Hispanic community as he had expected. And why did he expect great support from Hispanics? Immigration, immigration, immigration. Yeah, because that’s all Hispanics care about, right? Or perhaps he did not think about some few things.

Those Latinos who actually vote are not illegal. So their priorities are not amnesty, but those of most whites: taxes, jobs, their houses, education, etc.

Of course I am not counting those MECHA militants, who are a disgrace to the Hispanic population in the USA.

Most Hispanics KNOW mass immigration from the Third World could turn the US into Third World and they don’t want that. If they did, they would stay in their countries. They go to the USA because it IS the USA. It may sound like a paradox but that’s the way we think.

Finally: “His party was his worst enemy in trying to reach out to the Latino community,” Becerra said. “Left to his own devices, I think Senator McCain could have done very, very well—and still could do well—in the Latino community.” Being Republican was not the main problem, it was the fact that he supported the Bush administration and planned to continue his legacy, which led the country to an economic crisis. And if Latinos wanted to live in countries with a weak economy they would not migrate to the US. That without mentioning the vice-president he chose.

Paul K. writes:

Like many Republicans, John McCain is much more interested in pandering to people who are never going to vote for him than in representing his political base. For example, I recently read that the senator has been pressing for a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, convicted in 1913 under the Mann Act.

John McCain asks Obama to pardon Jack Johnson
April 2, 2009

A resolution for President Obama to pardon former world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson was introduced Wednesday by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), a posthumous bid to address the black fighter who was “wronged with a racially motivated conviction,” in 1913 for dating a white woman, a McCain statement said.

Johnson was convicted under the Mann Act that prohibited taking women across state lines for “immoral purposes.”

A written statement from McCain’s office Wednesday noted “the intent of the Mann Act was to prevent human trafficking of women for the purpose of prostitution. However, racially motivated convictions imprisoned Jack Johnson for a year in 1913. The convictions ruined his career and destroyed his reputation.”

Instead of pressing for a pardon for a prizefighter who died more than 60 years ago, wouldn’t it have been more useful if McCain had led the effort to keep Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean out of prison? Wouldn’t it have been great if he had been concerned that their convictions would ruin their careers and destroy their reputations? Silly thought, that—the senator only craves the approbation of liberals.

By the way, it is typical of McCain to describe Johnson’s provocation as merely “dating a white woman.” Johnson was a reckless womanizer who had an obsession with white women. He is quoted in contemporary newspapers as boasting, “I can have any white woman I want.” He married Etta Terry Duryea in 1910 or early 1911. He admitted to beating her up on occasion, but it was reportedly his relationship with 19-year-old Lucille Cameron that drove Duryea to suicide. Cameron moved in with Johnson almost immediately afterward, and her mother was convinced he had her “under some sort of spell.” Fearful that her daughter would end up like Duryea, she went to the police, setting in motion the charges of a Mann Act violation. Johnson married Cameron in December 1911 and the couple fled to France. They were divorced in 1924 on the grounds of his infidelities.

LA replies:

I disagree with you on one point, I don’t think McCain is pandering. I think he’s doing what he thinks is right. He didn’t do his immigration thing to win Hispanic votes but because he thought it was right. Yes, he also expected to do better with Hispanics than he did, but that wasn’t his primary motive.

McCain doesn’t pursue anti-national polices to get votes. He pursues anti-national policies because he deeply believes in them.

Paul K. replies:

I agree, I used the word imprecisely. Perhaps “catering” would be better.

Paul K. has a second thought:

To your point, I admit that it’s hard for me to accept that anyone could actually care about the century-old legal troubles of Jack Johnson, except for purposes of racial guilt-mongering, so I assumed that McCain is doing this to grandstand. The possibility that he is sincere is actually more disturbing.

LA replies:

Of course it’s more disturbing.

Mark A. writes:

I can visualize Karl Rove and John McCain working out their plan in 2008 now:

KR: “John, if you throw yourself at the feet of the Hispanics, we can get one vote for every two Democratic votes!”

JM: “But how will we win in the end with those figures?”

KR and JM in unison: “Volume!”

LA replies:

That may sound absurd, but it’s really not that far off from their actual thinking. How else to explain the fact that they think that if they get (by some miracle) 44 percent of the ever growing Hispanic segment of the population, while the Democrats get 56 percent, a Hispanic population that keeps growing because the Republicans help it to grow, because it’s only by helping it to grow that Republicans can win its votes, that this spells Republican survival and victory? It’s the wacky logic I spelled out in a 1996 piece. And the reason no Republican ever sees its wackiness is that if they saw its wackiness, they would have to oppose further Hispanic immigration, but since opposing further Hispanic immigration violates the Prime Directive planted in the brain of every modern respectable person, that thought can’t be thought. So they keep thinking that by deliberately increasing the Hispanic population, the majority of whose votes will always be Democratic, they are helping the GOP, when in fact they are sealing its doom. Better to take your party to electoral doom while muttering optimistic off-the-planet electoral scenarios, than to speak the truth, violate the Prime Directive, and become a non-person in mainstream society.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 06, 2009 11:51 AM | Send