Beltway Snark

For everyone who isn’t thrilled with McCain’s ideas on immigration reform, check out Obama’s:

Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

It’s a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It’s also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama’s stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in California, where driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis.

Clinton stumbled into that minefield in a debate last fall and quickly backed off. First she suggested a New York proposal for driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants might be reasonable. Then she denied endorsing the idea, and later came out against them.

…

“Barack Obama has not backed down” on driver’s licenses for undocumented people, said Federico Peña, a former Clinton administration Cabinet member and Denver mayor now supporting Obama. “I think when the Latino community hears Barack’s position on such an important and controversial issue, they’ll understand that his heart and his intellect is with Latino community.”

Wow. Obama manages to latch on to the one immigration reform platform that’s sure to tick off both his detractors and his supporters. This isn’t going to help him with the white working class vote, and it isn’t going to sit well with his African-American base. The only people happy about this are Latinos and John McCain, Latinos for obvious reasons and McCain because now his immigration plan looks downright  draconian in comparison.

H/T to RedState