Senator McCain Announces in Manchester, originally uploaded by VictoryNH: Protect Our Primary.

Sen. John McCain thinks he’s diagnosed the problem on immigration reform: “We need to do a little more salesmanship,” the Republican presidential candidate told a crowd in Alabama over the weekend. He later added that Republicans should treat each other with respect ”rather than accuse each other of a lack of patriotism.” I wasn’t aware of anyone making such an accusation; it seems what we’re accusing McCain of is abandoning the rule of law to give 12 million illegal immigrants amnesty.

Try as he might, McCain won’t be able to sell conservatives on the immigration reform plan that bears his name. The proposal he helped negotiate isn’t fixable in its current form. McCain complained that doing nothing was “defacto amnesty,” but as critics have repeatedly pointed out, there is a way forward without the Senate bill.

UPDATE — 11:28 p.m.: A friend suggested to me that had McCain bothered to show up at CPAC or a handful of other conservative gatherings, he could have been selling his immigration ideas for months. I guess you could chalk it up to a missed opportunity.