Beyond the Dome

After his immigration overhaul bill collapsed in the Senate last year, John McCain transformed himself into a "border security first" presidential candidate with remarkable speed.

His message, over and over again in the Republican primaries, was that he'd heard the voters. They wanted the borders locked down first, and that would be his first priority as president. He basically stopped talking about the other parts of the Senate bill, like the guest worker program and that "path to citizenship" for millions of illegal immigrants.

That wasn't too surprising while he was competing for Republican votes, but his colleagues who worked with him on the bill – including GOP Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida – always read his remarks as a sign that he'd do the other things later, not that he'd abandoned them entirely.

Judging from McCain's remarks at a press conference in Phoenix this morning, the pivot has started.

"I believe the majority of the Hispanics share our view that the border must be secured, and the border must be secured first. But they also want us to have an attitude, which I think most Americans do, that these are God's children, and they must be taken care of, and the issue must be addressed in a humane and compassionate fashion. And we will – I will continue to carry that message, with the priority that we must secure or borders first . . .

"When I'm president of the United States beginning in January of 2009, we will have a federal approach to what is a federal problem. And first of all, national security is our first priority. We must secure the borders and the border state governors will then certified that the borders are secured. Then we have a temporary worker program with tamper-proof biometric documents and re-address the issue of the people who have come here illegally.

And, by the way, McCain didn't sound embarrassed by his old immigration bill at all today. "If the federal government had acted and passed the legislation for overall comprehensive immigration reform, we would not have the problems we have today," he said.

That's the kind of thing you can say when you no longer have a primary opponent.