Ground Game

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 Hawkins has withdrawn his already tepid endorsement of McCain, saying the Arizona senator has flip-flopped on his earlier immigration policy reversal.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?