There is an understandable eagerness in the ranks of those organizing the year’s flexible Irish American Presidential Forum to attract the presence of John McCain.
After all, McCain has turned up for other Irish events in recent times, a reception hosted by the Irish American Republicans in Manhattan and a rally in the Bronx organized by the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform.
A Republican presidential candidate has never graced a forum and the sense is that in McCain there is a real chance for that hoodoo to be finally broken.
The word is, however, that while McCain would have no problem talking about Ireland, both the Republic and the wee North, he is lately a lot more circumspect about immigration and immigration reform is at the heart of one of the six questions drafted by the forum organizers for the candidates.
McCain, of course, championed reform in the senate last year but went down to startling defeat alongside Ted Kennedy. Now, as the GOP candidate, he has to assuage the feelings of Republican voters who were hostile to McCain/Kennedy to begin with.
Immigration is still prominent on McCain’s website though he sounds a lot less like a reformer these days; rather, the emphasis is on border security.
“Immigration is one of those challenging issues that touch on many aspects of American life,” McCain states.
“I have always believed that our border must be secured and that the federal government has utterly failed in its responsibility to ensure that it is secure.”
“As president, I will secure the border. I will restore the trust Americans should have in the basic competency of their government. A secure border is an essential element of our national security,” he adds.
McCain does go on to argue that secure border “will contribute to addressing our immigration problem most effectively if we also...”
At this point he rolls out a series of ideas. But not one of them could be described as a call for the kind of comprehensive reform that the Arizona senator was so fervently up for just a matter of months ago.
There’s something about that Oval Office that makes even the straightest talkers a little gun shy.
Hill high note
No matter what happens to Hillary’s presidential bid she will remember the Irish music.
Martin O’Malley, governor of Maryland when he’s not playing his guitar and singing, along with Joe Crowley, a congressman when not playing his guitar and belting one out, were the headline acts last Saturday at a rally and reception for Clinton at Finnegan’s Wake in Philadelphia.
The event was organized by the Irish American Democrats lobby group which is headed by Stella O’Leary, who has been full time on the job of singing Hillary’s praises this election season.
