Kaus points to an editorial at the top immigration-lawyer site on the web that only with McCain in the White House can amnesty pass Congress:
While there are a few areas of agreement between Mr. McCain and Democrats, immigration is the largest issue on which Democrats and McCain agree. While the current Republican Party platform is the most anti-immigrant one in memory, there were news reports that Mr. McCain, who has a long track record of being pro-immigration, tried to make it more immigration-friendly and failed. This is the issue on which he is most likely to stab his party’s anti-immigrationist wing in the back both in his political interests and due to his own convictions (Mr. McCain had to fight his party’s anti-immigrationists tooth and nail during the Republican primaries). We expect to see almost all of the original McCain-Kennedy bill become law during the first six months of a McCain Presidency. [my emphasis — MK]
The Bush era has been the worst in memory for immigration advocates. However the combination of a powerful Democratic majority in Congress with Mr. McCain as President offers the best hope for speedily obtaining desperately needed immigration benefits.
I think the editorial is a little optimistic, but there’s really no question that McCain would be much more likely to succeed in pushing amnesty through Congress than Obama. But I’m not sure I agree with Mickey’s characterization of conservatives as “the biggest suckers on the planet” — those who believe that Amnesty John has really changed his mind are indeed suckers, but there could be those who, say, really think Obama would pull out of Iraq precipitously (don’t count on it, Kos Kids) and to avoid that are willing to risk busting open the borders (America’s borders, that is). Not much of a deal, in my opinion, but to each his own — just so long as no one is surprised at what McCain does once he’s in office.