NYT: ’08 Candidates Weighing Consequences as They Take Sides on Immigration Plan

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/19/us/politics/19candidates.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

’08 Candidates Weighing Consequences as They Take Sides on Immigration Plan

By MARC SANTORA
Published: May 19, 2007

The bipartisan immigration proposal being taken up by Congress is putting pressure on the leading presidential candidates to take a position on the issue, which could set them up for confrontations with influential constituencies within the two parties.

After the announcement of the bipartisan plan on Thursday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York Democrat, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor who is one of the Republican frontrunners, were initially noncommittal. Both suggested on Friday that they were open to supporting it, but only with major revisions to some of its main components.

Reflecting the complexity of the issue and the political caution surrounding it, neither of them matched the embrace of the legislation on Thursday by Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican.

Mr. McCain already faces a direct clash with another of the Republican candidates, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who has come out against the bill as he intensifies his efforts to win the support of conservatives who are wary of Mr. McCain and Mr. Giuliani. Mr. Romney’s opponents said his position had shifted from more moderate views that he voiced a few years ago.

On Friday, the Romney campaign unveiled a television commercial about illegal immigration that it said would run starting this weekend in New Hampshire and Iowa.

Mr. McCain’s position was also assailed on Friday by conservative commentators, who object in particular to the provisions of the legislation that could ultimately grant legal status to many of the estimated 12 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally.

Mr. Giuliani’s emphasis has been on whether the legislation would adequately protect the nation from terrorists who might enter the United States illegally.

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