New Mexico pollster says about Gov. Bill Richardson: "He’s hard to pigeonhole as being definitely anti-immigration or pro-immigration."

From The New York Times:

Mr. Richardson initially said he would support the immigration compromise announced earlier this week. But on Wednesday, he said that after reading it in detail, he had decided to oppose it, saying the measure placed too great a burden on immigrants — tearing apart families that wanted to settle in the United States, creating a permanent tier of second-class immigrant workers and financing a border fence that Mr. Richardson had long opposed.

Mr. Richardson said he did not want to be pigeonholed as the immigration candidate. . . .

He is the first major Democrat to call explicitly for defeat of the bill in its current form . . . .

Mr. Richardson said he wanted his candidacy to be identified with other issues — an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, a national health care program — rather than immigration.

Brian Sanderoff, the head of a New Mexico polling firm, said Mr. Richardson had handled the issue adroitly in New Mexico, presenting himself as both tough and compassionate. . . .

“This is typical Bill Richardson,” he said. “Bill Richardson tends to take a middle of the road empathetic position with an act of toughness with it. That’s Bill. He’s hard to pigeonhole as being definitely anti-immigration or pro-immigration. He’s going to take a middle stance where he’ll seem to have positions on both sides of the fence.”
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I am still studying the immigration bill before forming an opinion. But I do think it is encouraging that at least the Senate is trying to do something about this matter on a bipartisan basis. If something cannot be done in a bipartisanship manner, nothing will be done.

That said, I cannot say that I find Gov. Richardson's reasons for being opposed to the bill to be all that compelling. As noted in the above article, Gov. Richardson risks identifying his candidacy with the efforts in Congress to ease strictures against immigrants who are in this country illegally, exposing himself to the strong anti-immigration currents that have been unleashed by this battle.

The Senate legislation is premised on four central tenets: (1) tightening border controls and punishing the employers of illegal immigrants; (2) granting legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country; (3) establishing a guest-worker program to give would-be illegal immigrants a legitimate route into the country; and (4) shifting the emphasis of future legal migration away from family reunification and into favoring immigrants with work skills and educations.