BT, look what jsut got posted today at CNN:
Manchester, New Hampshire (CNN) -- Immigration reform is proving to be a divisive issue for the Republican Party. But few prominent Republicans are feeling the heat like Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a fact that prompted the 2008 contender to address the issue head-on Monday.
"I'm not running to do the easy things," McCain told the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce in a speech. "I defend with no reservation our proposal to offer the people who harvest our crops, tend our gardens, work in our restaurants, care for our children and clean our homes a chance to be legal citizens of this country."
McCain earned the ire of conservatives when he co-sponsored immigration reform legislation with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, last year -- a proposal critics charged provided amnesty to illegal immigrants...McCain's campaign concedes the fire from the conservative wing of their party does not help them politically, but they said they are pragmatic.
The campaign knew the senator was not going to get a lot of "air cover" on this issue, so the decision was made to have him deal with it in Monday's speech and before Tuesday's Republican debate in New Hampshire.
To try and duck the issue, the campaign said, would not be in line with McCain's character.
Still, McCain's position may cost him with the very conservatives he's been trying to woo.
"There's this trust issue with conservatives and McCain and it's here [in New Hampshire] as well as elsewhere in the country," said Dante Scala, an associate professor at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, the site of Tuesday night's GOP presidential debate.
"The problem is every time something comes up or seems a little bit out of the mainstream of conservative thought, conservatives say 'oh see, this is another reason we can't trust him,' " Scala said.
see
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/04/mccain.immigration/index.html
