John McCain: GOP brand won't hurt me with Latinos

U.S. Sen. John McCain is reaching out to Hispanics in his 2016 re-election bid, even as Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and other GOP contenders are damaging the party's national brand with many Latinos with their at-times inflammatory rhetoric about Mexican immigrants.

At a campaign event Thursday at Desert Sky Mall in west Phoenix, McCain, R-Ariz., suggested Trump's remarks, which have included saying Mexican immigrants bring drugs and crime and are rapists, won't hurt his re-election effort with Arizona Hispanics, an influential and growing constituency.

"First of all, I do not agree with comments that were made by Mr. Trump, and I said so at the time, and I will continue to strongly disagree with his comments," McCain said. "But I also believe that the people of Arizona will make a judgment on my record, which is very long, and my support of the Hispanic community. ... And I'm proud of that record, and I'm proud of the support that I have in the Hispanic community."

McCain's record on immigration and border-security issues is indeed long and complicated, and, as a result, he has found himself under attack from both the right and left in his bid for a sixth U.S. Senate term.

In 2014, the Arizona Republican Party formally censured McCain for, among other offenses, being too liberal on immigration reform, or "amnesty."

This year, Trump slammed McCain as "very weak on immigration" in what erupted into a full-blown feud. And state Sen. Kelli Ward, R-Lake Havasu City, McCain's best-known primary challenger, hits him repeatedly on the issue.

McCain co-authored with the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., a comprehensive immigration-reform bill that passed the Senate in 2006. His support for subsequent immigration-reform legislation from Kennedy and then-U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., got him crosswise with conservative anti-"amnesty" forces and nearly sunk his 2008 presidential campaign.

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In 2013, McCain was a member of the so-called "Gang of Eight" who negotiated a bipartisan immigration-reform package that included a pathway to citizenship for many of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who have settled in the United States. The bill again passed the Senate but was ignored by the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives.

"His own party, obviously, knows him, too, so that's why they beat up on him for his position," said Tommy Espinoza, a Democrat and co-chair of “Unidos con McCain," a pro-McCain Hispanic coalition announced Thursday. "But you've got to give the guy credit: He's a leader that's willing to take a hit on issues that he thinks are important."

But in the 2008 presidential race and his 2010 Senate re-election race, McCain pivoted to a strategy in which he demanded a secure U.S.-Mexico border before proceeding with reforms such as a pathway to citizenship. And many remember a now-famous TV commercial in which he walked with Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and called for completing "the danged fence."

Those episodes give McCain's possible Democratic opponent, three-term U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick of Flagstaff, and her allies the opening to slam McCain as insincere and inconsistent on Hispanic issues.

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"Senator McCain has played the same game for years, and he plays it with the skill of someone entrenched in Washington for more than three decades,” D.B. Mitchell, Kirkpatrick's campaign spokesman, said in a written statement. “He panders to the reckless, anti-immigrant wing of the GOP whenever he’s up for re-election, then taps his campaign coffers to pay for good P.R. in Arizona's Hispanic community. But the clock is running out on McCain's cynical game -- voters won't be fooled."

Emily's List, a liberal, Washington, D.C.-based group that has endorsed Kirkpatrick in Arizona's Senate race, went as far as accusing McCain of creating "a fake business coalition" to support him.

“On the last day of Hispanic Heritage Month, Sen. John McCain is quick to put on his Hispanic sombrero to pander to the nearly two million Latinos in his state — a political game that is as obvious as McCain's anti-immigrant rhetoric," Sonia Melendez Reyes, Emily's List's deputy communications director, said in a written statement.

Melendez Reyes did not respond to The Republic's follow-up request for elaboration on why Emily's List considers the pro-McCain coalition to be fake.

Lorna Romero, McCain's spokeswoman, in turn, characterized Kirkpatrick as an ineffective bystander in Congress.

"John McCain is very proud of his long record of leading the fight for sensible, humane reform to our broken immigration system, including provisions to secure our border and mandating the E-verify system to ensure employers are not hiring individuals in the country illegally," Romero told The Republic. "It's not surprising to see Democrats try to distort and attack him, especially since Congresswoman Kirkpatrick has zero record of significant involvement in these issues."

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @dannowicki and on his official Facebook page.