Today John McCain will deliver a speech where he will say that:

...he has earned the trust of Hispanic voters by championing an immigration reform bill that nearly killed his presidential bid.  [...]

"I took my lumps for it without complaint. My campaign was written off as a lost cause. I did so not just because I believed it was the right thing to do for Hispanic Americans. It was the right thing to do for all Americans."

But McCain is ignoring one little detail; he thought that it was the right thing to do until he realized that the issue was killing him among conservatives, so he lurched to the right and flip-flopped on his own bill.