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Originally Posted by ajmccarrell
It was never an amnesty bill. It came with stiff penalties and other measures to punish those who remained. He always said he planned on sealing the border too. Don't give me that.
He was never a moderate, the media just liked to play it up when he disagreed with his party. If you look at his voting record, he has a conservative record of 82%, whereas uberconservative Fred Thompson has an 86%. He always was a conservative. He was just more fun than the rest.
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I have close personal experience with the immigration bill, and I know what was in it. You're mischaracterizing McCain's position, which was widely criticized by the Right at the time, which he has had refocus in order to gain their favor.
I'm not sure where you got the 82% Conservative record, but look at the trend in his voting.
From FactCheck.org: "According to Congressional Quarterly's Voting Studies, in 2007 McCain voted in line with the president's position 95 percent of the time – the highest percentage rate for McCain since Bush took office – and voted in line with his party 90 percent of the time. However, McCain's support of President Bush's position has been as low as 77 percent (in 2005), and his support for his party's position has been as low as 67 percent (2001)." I believe he has voted with Bush's explicitly supported bills 100% of the time in 2008.
I guess he can still call himself a maverick if he wants to, but only in the sense that he's been voting with W when Americans clearly don't approve of what he's doing.