U.S. Senator John McCain today issued the following statement on Cinco de Mayo as his campaign announced several new Spanish efforts:
“Cinco de Mayo commemorates an important moment in the history of Mexico’s path to freedom. On this day in 1862, a small group of Mexican troops overcame overwhelming force to win the Battle of Puebla. Today, we join together to remember the sacrifice that these Mexican patriots endured, as well as the struggles of all those around the world striving for freedom. We recognize as well the important friendship that exists between our country and Mexico, and celebrate the many contributions Mexican-Americans have made to our society, culture, security and economy.”
The Cinco de Mayo statement can now also be found on the Spanish section of the official campaign website at JohnMcCain.com :: Estamos Unidos con McCain, which the campaign launched today. This part of the website will feature regular updates in Spanish throughout the election.
Finally, as part of his commitment to talking with all Americans during this presidential campaign, the McCain presidential campaign announced that John McCain will attend the La Raza Annual Convention in San Diego on July 14, 2008.

You want straight talk? McCain’s tongue says he’s “listened and learned.” But his heart is with La Raza, the militantly ethnocentric, anti-immigration enforcement Hispanic lobbying group that honored him in 1999 and whose annual conference he keynoted in 2004…
…Crooked talk: He says he’ll build the fence.
Straight talk: He resents what he calls the “goddamned fence.”
John McCain and La Raza-The Race share a deep-seated contempt for grass-roots conservatives who worked successfully to defeat the disastrous amnesty bill. And they share a common impulse to marginalize their political opponents as “haters.”
Thus, La Raza-The Race has launched a new “We Can Stop the Hate” campaign–smack dab in the middle of the campaign season–to redefine tough policy criticism from the Right as “hate.” They protest that it is “racist” and out-of-bounds to talk about reconquista–even as the McCain campaign boasts a “Mexico First/”Just A Region”/”Free Flow of People” outreach director who’s practicing it out in the open for the leading GOP presidential front-runner.
Yes, an ethnic separatist group that calls itself “The Race”–a group that has embraced John McCain and vice versa–has the gall to crusade against “hate.” Chris Kelly notes that La Raza-The Race head Janet Murguia is calling for networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves and that both La Raza-The Race and another open-borders group are pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut up their foes.
Read it:

Ms. Murguia argued that hate speech should not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights: “Everyone knows there is a line sometimes that can be crossed when it comes to free speech. And when free speech transforms into hate speech, we’ve got to draw that line. And that’s what we’re doing here today. And we need to make sure that network executives will hold their people accountable and not cross that line.”

Murgia praised McCain and looks forward to the “tapering down” of immigration enforcement efforts if he wins the White House: “With his emergence as a leading Republican presidential primary contender, I do think that we’ll see this toned down… Does it mean that we know everything he’s going to do in that area of reform? And I know he’s got his work cut out for him with a number of people, and we’ll see him put this whole platform together, but we do believe that if he ends up being in a lead role here, we think that that issue will be tapered down.”
No respect for the rule of law. No respect for the First Amendment.
Like John McCain said: “I’ll rely on people to judge me by the company that I keep.”
The company John McCain keeps:
Russ Feingold.
Teddy Kennedy.
Lindsay Grahamnesty.
Juan “Mexico First/Free Flow” Hernandez.
Jerry “Spanish first” Perenchio.
Geraldo Rivera.
La Raza.
Charles Keating.
John Kerry.
The New York Times.