-- by Hans Nichols, Bloomberg News:

Two years ago, Tommy Espinoza [1] stood on the stage of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, to vouch [2] for John McCain [3]’s compassion for immigrants. Today, Espinoza has a dimmer view of the senator.

McCain’s campaign for re-election in Arizona “concluded that if they didn’t take an extreme position on immigration, he was at risk of losing,” said Espinoza, president of Raza Development Fund [4] in Phoenix. “Well, he’s not going to lose, but it’s been heart-wrenching for me. It’s such a radical departure from where he was just a couple of years ago.”

High in the Huachuca Mountains [5], a hundred paces from the steel-slatted border fence with Mexico, state Senator Russell Pearce [6], who wrote Arizona’s tough new immigration law, finds himself in rare agreement with Espinoza on McCain’s prospects.

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