McCain's run in 2000 vs. 2008

It just struck me after skimming this and this.

In 2000 John McCain took some serious heat in South Carolina for calling Falwell and Robertson "agents of intolerance", but so much less well known is his take on Bob Jones University's ban on interracial dating (yeah, this stuff still goes on in this country). In opposition McCain refused to speak at the school. McCain raised a very important debate at Bob Jones and across the country. Within days, the school folded like wet cardboard. Tho unlikely, this side debate may have caused him the GOP nomination.

Now McCain claims to have received death threats. At least one protester, flanked with signs reading "traitor", follow him around. His "crime"? Immigration. It's not so much his immigration record, since Rudy, Romney, and even Thompson have been at least as loose in the past. His real crime is that he refuses to pander for the nomination. The right is falling head over heels for an immigration panderer -never mind what your record actually is.

Is this the new debate akin to the interracial ban in 2000? I think so.