From a conservative primary voter perspective, Fred Thompson
came off the best out of this exchange. Rudy and McCain both
defended their positions well, but their support of legalization
with penalties will be viewed as tantamount to amnesty by
imigration hawks. Romney just isn't credible on this issue. He says
his description of McCain-Kennedy as "reasonable" was made while he
was still evaluating competing plans. Fine. But how would that
affect his definitional judgement that the bill was "quite
different" from amnesty.