Gingrich: Immigration Hurts McCain More Than Abortion Hurts Giuliani Among GOP Voters

June 8, 2007 — -- John McCain tells ABC News that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich "may be right" for thinking that the Arizona senator's immigration stance is a bigger hurdle to the GOP's 2008 presidential nomination than former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's support for abortion rights.

"Sen. McCain carries both the burden of McCain-Feingold and now the burden of the McCain-Kennedy bill," said Gingrich in a question and answer session following a Friday speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. "And I think, in a sense . . . if you were handicapping, he has the greatest challenge in a Republican primary in explaining those positions."

In an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos airing this Sunday on "This Week," McCain does not entirely refute Gingrich's assessment.

"He may be right, for all I know," McCain said of Gingrich's immigration claim, "but I went [to the Senate] to do the hard things. I went there to do something. The easiest thing for me to do is go there and say 'no' to things."

While McCain conceded that Gingrich may be right with respect to the political risk posed by his immigration stance, McCain rejected Gingrich's claim that the landmark campaign-finance legislation which bears his name poses a similar threat to McCain's White House ambitions.

"Out here in Iowa," McCain told ABC News, "you go with me to all these town hall meetings, you'll never hear anybody ask about that. That's an inside-the-beltway thing, people who lost money who used to make a lot of money off of this soft money that was washing around."

Channeling his political idol, former President Teddy Roosevelt, McCain continued, "I'm in the arena. I'm working hard. I'm proud of my record. And from time to time, it may not be agreeable, but it's what the people of Arizona sent me there to do and I'm proud and happy to do it."

Even though Gingrich and Giuliani have different positions on abortion rights, Gingrich believes that the man who led New York through the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has a "very strong case to make" on national security and that GOP primary voters will place more importance on those security credentials than on his liberal social views.

"Right to life really matters," said Gingrich. "There are a number of places, for example, where I really disagree with Mayor Giuliani. But in a world where a nuclear weapon could eliminate an American city in seconds, he has a very strong case to make."