John McCain faces an electoral trade-off as the presumptive Republican nominee for president. His preferred stance on immigration, "comprehensive reform," is one that is popular with a majority of Americans but loathed by large swaths of the self-appointed conservative movement. During his party's primaries, McCain made a respectable compromise in promising to secure the nation's borders before pursuing a path to legalization for the millions of undocumented workers and illegal immigrants already in the country. It's a fine example of the kind of compromise McCain touts on a regular basis. And like any good compromise, it has those with purist/extreme views on immigration very upset.

Right Wing News' John Hawkins is topping the conservative blogosphere's discussion this morning with his post entitled, "Why I Will No Longer Support John McCain For President." Hawkins has withdrawn his already tepid endorsement of McCain, saying the Arizona senator has flip-flopped on his earlier immigration policy reversal. It's a quintessential blog post: well-written, a little over-the-top and loose with the facts. Case in point:

Put very simply: John McCain is a liar. He's a man without honor, without integrity

Even McCain's fiercest critics on the left, who also occasionally play loose with the facts, i.e. "100 years in Iraq," rarely employ such dramatic language. But the truth is, McCain has not changed his position. Ed Morrissey, who is every bit as much a legitimate conservative as Hawkins, says it best:

McCain never pledged to give up comprehensive immigration reform. He pledged to secure the borders first, but even in the extensive quotes that John has in his post, he never promised to stop seeking a comprehensive solution for illegal immigration afterwards. Even in this sequence, he talks about border security first. I don't see this as "breaking his security pledge", as John puts it.

So, back to that electoral trade-off. Is McCain best served by appeasing die hards like Hawkins and Michelle Malkin? They're support has been weak already and there's little evidence their influence as blog writers equates to movement at the ballot box. After all, both were big fans of Duncan Hunter's presidential run. Nonetheless, McCain is dealing with some tricky math. At what point does he maximize his potential support from the far right and begin jeopardizing some of that support to appeal to a larger section of the centrist voting public?

John McCain's moderate stance on immigration has caused him some serious grief within GOP circles, but pairs up nicely with the views of a strong majority of the overall electorate. That's why McCain's new outreach video to Hispanic voters is winning accolades from even lefty partisans like Matthew Yglesias, who calls the ad "shrewd":

McCain's mission is to communicate "I'm not a racist" to his most likely Hispanic supporters, and given the tendency of small business owners everywhere to love the GOP a specific focus on small business seems smart.

Mitt Romney’s new ad attacking Mike Huckabee’s record on immigration is being called the first attack ad of the Republican primary, if not the entire election.

Jonathan Martin says the ad is a sign of “ Mitt desperation” from Romney, which I think is pretty accurate analysis.

However, most bloggers across the spectrum are using the opportunity to attack Huckabee, not Romney. That too may be a sign of desperation: fear from conservative bloggers that Huckabee’s momentum is too strong to stop at this point, and from liberal bloggers who are having to deal with “Republican” and “momentum” being used in the same context for the first time in awhile.

Simon Rosenberg writes in his Daily Kos diary that Huckabee has put up a response ad, “consistent with his new nutty immigration 'plan,' showing how tough he is.”

Leading conservative blog Red State says Huckabee is a nice guy but would be a terrible president because of his policies on immigration, taxes and foreign policy:

Mike Huckabee is a great guy trying to the right thing but becoming President of the United States isn’t where he’s headed. We may not have the greatest choices this election but the more there are, the less of a chance we have of actually achieving a Republican victory.

While Powerline says: "Mike Huckabee’s wrong-headed foreign prescriptions threaten to outstrip our ability to report them."

Meanwhile, Firedoglake notes Huckabee has received the endorsement of “extremist xenophobic vigilante” Jim Gilchrist.

And the Street Prophets blog speculates that Huckabee’s meteoric rise in the polls may be largely thanks to support from GOPer Randy Brinson and his 71 million strong email list.

All this on a day when Matt Drudge is leading with an item claiming that Democrats are "holding fire" in their criticism of Huckabee. Just more evidence that while the blogs and traditional media often focus on the same subjects, they are rarely on the same page.

Finally, Soren Dayton’s round-up on Huckabee backlash can be found here:

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint stopped by the Heritage Foundation today for the weekly Conservative Bloggers Briefing, hosted by Heritage’s web guru, Rob Bluey.

“I think for the first time in the past year, we are beginning to see the power of blogs,” DeMint told the crowd, which included visiting activists from more than 30 states.

DeMint said the influence of conservative bloggers has grown to the point where their agenda now shapes the programming decisions of conservative talk radio. In fact, DeMint said his office has even begun circulating some of its press releases directly to the blogosphere, circumventing the mainstream press.

Specifically, DeMint gave conservative bloggers credit for defeating a comprehensive immigration bill earlier this week. “The bloggers took it apart, showed people what was really in it,” he said. “We could not have done it as just a couple of senators.”

Looking forward, he said bloggers will be instrumental in pressuring lawmakers over the Iraq funding debate, “Just help us expose what is really going on here,” he said.