There is something strange going on with John McCain and the support he is generating among Latino voters. That support has been stellar in the past, but now it is on the wane. In fact, if the polls are correct, McCain is about to turn in his worst performance ever with Latinos.

Sen. McCain received 65 percent of the Latino vote in his 1998 re-election in Arizona, and 70 percent of the Latino vote in 2004. Yet, by all indications, he will be lucky to break 25 percent in the presidential election.

Of the 10 battleground states typically cited by pundits, four have significant Hispanic populations: Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada. There are signs that the McCain campaign has surrendered in Colorado and New Mexico, and is concentrating on Florida and Nevada.

A recent Zogby poll of Latino likely voters nationwide found that only 21 percent of Latino voters support McCain, while 70 percent support Barack Obama. A poll by the Pew Hispanic Center found that 23 percent of Latinos support McCain and 66 percent support Obama.

What went wrong? And, with an estimated 9 million Latinos expected to cast ballots, can McCain turn this around?

McCain tackled these questions during an interview Tuesday with The San Diego Union-Tribune. He blamed his slide with Latino voters on a combination of negative campaigning and historical revisionism about what occurred during last year's immigration debate.

"My opponent has portrayed my position on the immigration issue as completely false," McCain said, "when he supported and proposed amendments to kill a temporary worker program at the bidding of the union leaders. In fact, Ted Kennedy and he voted differently. It's a matter of record."

McCain remains committed to reigniting the immigration debate, no matter what the outcome of the election.

"Whether I have to go back to the United States Senate," he said, "which I don't believe I will, or go to the presidency, the issue of comprehensive immigration reform will be among my highest priorities."

McCain acknowledged that Republicans in Congress hurt the party's brand with Latino voters with "language and rhetoric that ... made Latino citizens believe that we were anti-Latino." Yet, he hopes that those voters, whom he called "wonderful Americans who are the heart and soul of the country," will look beyond party labels and assess his record as well as his positions on issues such as abortion, taxes and the military. If they judge him on his own merits, he said, he'll do much better than the polls suggest.

"I'm confident that, as more of those Latino voters focus in the next 14 days, we'll do well," he said. "Not as well as I had hoped, obviously. But we'll do well."

We hope that is the case. It's not just that we think McCain would make a better president than his opponent. The truth is, McCain has done a lot to earn Latino support, and Obama hasn't.

Republicans have made some dumb mistakes, and Democrats have capitalized on them. That's politics. But leadership requires more. And, time and again, in reaching out to Latino voters McCain has delivered it.

REPRINTED FROM THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE.

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