By Eric Kleefeld - July 8, 2008, 5:50PM
It looks like Barack Obama is taking the fight to John Mccain on immigration. In a speech today, Obama aggressively targeted the Arizona Senator on the issue, charging that McCain had been friendly to Latinos until the GOP primary forced him to abandon his previous principled stand.
Key quote:
Now, I know Senator McCain used to buck his party on immigration by fighting for comprehensive reform, and I admired him for it. But when he was running for his party's nomination, he abandoned his courageous stance, and said that he wouldn't even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote. Well, for eight long years, we've had a President who made all kinds of promises to Latinos on the campaign trail, but failed to live up to them in the White House, and we can't afford that anymore. We need a President who isn't going to walk away from something as important as comprehensive reform when it becomes politically unpopular.
The Obama campaign will spend the next four months targeting McCain on issues -- such as immigration -- where he earlier held a "maverick" position that he's now jettisoned in order to please the Republican base.
Full speech after the jump.
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