The Primaries and Immigration

Several Republican candidates made a strict anti-illegal immigration policy the hallmark of their bid for the nomination. They are all gone now. Instead John McCain, who has been bitterly criticized by self-appointed spokesmen for the party for being too moderate on immigration, is now the presumed winner of the nomination.

The Wall Street Journal, which has always supported immigration reform that allows for a clear-cut path to permanent residency and citizenship points out this fact. Read the whole column, but their summation is:

The GOP primaries have been about as clear a market test as one could imagine for the restrictionist position. Mr. Romney adopted it in full-throated fashion, as Fred Thompson did earlier, and as Mike Huckabee does now. If hostility to illegal immigration were as decisive a voting issue as the TV and radio talkers claim, Senator McCain would not be the presumptive Republican nominee. And this is all without taking account of Democrats and Independents, who tend to be even less restrictionist.

The primaries suggest that even GOP voters appreciate that immigration is more complicated than conservative media elites pretend. Mr. McCain has adapted his immigration position over the last year and now talks about securing the border before other reforms go ahead. But he also talks about a guest-worker program to deal with economic realities, as well as the folly of deportation.

This must be right, even wise, since it agrees with Clemens' position. Once again the voters, even in primaries which usually bring out the committed and doctrinaire, seem to have more sense than most of the politicos.