So far we have had four counties, Mohave, Apache, Maricopa, and now Cochise pass resolutions censoring Senator McCain. Years ago, when Matt Salmon was state chairman, the Arizona Republican Assembly unanimously passed similar resolutions censoring the Senator. The state party did nothing and since then, Senator McCain has since won elections by a landslide. Ever since he was a member of the Keating Five, it looks like Senator McCain has worked to build one of the most powerful campaign organizations in the state.
Maybe more counties will follow suite, maybe not. Since those four counties represent about 69% of the state Republicans, if they work together, maybe they can get some more counties to go along with them. It may be possible to mount a successful campaign against Senator McCain to get him to change his ways. And for elections, that depends on Senator McCain’s opponent, who has yet to be identified. It may be that Senator McCain will laugh all the way through elections. What may happen is pure conjecture.
What all this really shows, opinion-wise, is the counties’ dissatisfaction and frustration with the state Republican Party. The state party represents the potentially, thousands of Precinct Committeemen, who are the ‘boots on the ground’, for the party, but the party seemingly has no interest in taking a stand on issues, nor holding any of the elected elite accountable for Republican values or in supporting it’s members. It seems that our Grand Old Party can only ‘bad mouth’ Democrats. So, it seems logical then if the state party is going to do nothing, and if anything is to be done, the counties must act.
Remember Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment: Never speak ill of a fellow Republican. In some cases, that has merit; sometimes not. Hanging out one’s dirty linen could back fire. For example, for anyone who listened to the Republican presidential candidate debates, after they tore each other apart, who would want to vote for any of them?
But consider if we had a proactive AZGOP, and the state chair held a caucus of the 15 county chairs. Then, they agreed on such a resolution. If the chair sent a letter to Senator McCain telling him that if he didn’t cease and desist, that he risked losing AZGOP support, what does one suppose Senator McCain would do?
A political party is created by people with aligned political views. There is strength in numbers. But it seems that years ago, the Grand Old Party of Arizona became no more than a secondary campaign committee supporting Republican winners of the primary election, RINOs included. Aligned political views? Why does a person register with one party or another? Aligned political views? Why, then, did the voters in Congressional District Two, that has more registered Republicans than Democrats, vote for a Democrat to represent them in congress? Is that ‘aligned political views’? Where was the Republican party?
And, referring to the state party, looks like it may be talking about ONE man. The state party bylaws are structured so that the state chair can do about anything he wants. With no information on issues nor candidates forthcoming from the party, about all voters have to go on is what campaign rhetoric they hear from the candidates. No collective party assessment on much of anything,
By the way, can anyone explain why in July of 2013 there were 1,139,154 registered Republicans, and in Oct. 2013 there were 1.129,854, or 9300 fewer registered Republicans in 3 months? Why the Democrats lost 8,538 during the same period while the ‘other’ gained 13,809 during the same period. Party satisfaction????
If you do what you have always done, you are going to get what you always got.
Jim Ehl