Was there any difference between Romney and McCain?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

McCain was pro-immigration reform, Romney was so ha%^@$$d the other way that even Trump thought it was too far.

Glad someone mentioned this.

Romney defined his path to the national spotlight on the back of the immigration issue. He ran as the suburban conservative, who was against amnesty for illegals. This positioned him to the right of McCain, Rudy and Fred Thompson, but left him exposed with rural populists, which is how Huckabee came into the mix.

If you look at the maps in close primary states like GA for instance and Missouri, The suburbs were often Romney versus McCain, while the rural areas were McCain versus Huckabee. At the time, immigration hawks were centered mostly in suburbs in places like Socal, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Charlotte etc. These areas have mostly flipped now and the rise in racial tensions with migrant labor in more rural counties, has created new bases for this like Luzerne and Berks County, PA. Romney was the last gasp for crime conscious suburbanites and his approach to the immigration issue was primarily a law and order one and less economic, whereas Trump's approach was more economically populist in its immigration arguments.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

McCain was pro-immigration reform, Romney was so ha%^@$$d the other way that even Trump thought it was too far.

Glad someone mentioned this.

Romney defined his path to the national spotlight on the back of the immigration issue. He ran as the suburban conservative, who was against amnesty for illegals. This positioned him to the right of McCain, Rudy and Fred Thompson, but left him exposed with rural populists, which is how Huckabee came into the mix.

If you look at the maps in close primary states like GA for instance and Missouri, The suburbs were often Romney versus McCain, while the rural areas were McCain versus Huckabee. At the time, immigration hawks were centered mostly in suburbs in places like Socal, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Charlotte etc. These areas have mostly flipped now and the rise in racial tensions with migrant labor in more rural counties, has created new bases for this like Luzerne and Berks County, PA. Romney was the last gasp for crime conscious suburbanites and his approach to the immigration issue was primarily a law and order one and less economic, whereas Trump's approach was more economically populist in its immigration arguments.

I'm not sure if you're saying Huck was to the right of Romney on Immigration, but from what I noticed when listening to Double Down, it appears that Romney was prepared to attack both Perry and Huckabee on the in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, and I believe he used that attack with Perry in his disaster of a campaign. 

Huckabee was weaker on immigration and Romney supporters attacked him on the matter in 2008, but as I said in the post, many rural areas weren't focusing on immigration as a higher priority yet. They cared more about Romney's image as "the guy who comes to lay you off" and his flip flops on guns and abortion and thus Huckabee had a great advantage over the rural areas on those issues. Likewise, McCain's military background and foreign policy views made him competitive in many rural areas as well.