McCain Sows Discord Among GOP Loyalists

NEWS & ANALYSIS

Democrats Contributed Heavily to McCain's Efforts in District 11 Election

Dec. 5, 2006

The Sonoran Alliance reported today that Democrats contributed a significant share of the funding for Sen. McCain's unsuccessful effort to seize control of GOP Legislative District 11.

Greg Wendt and Lisa Wendt, of San Francisco, regular contributors to Democrat Party candidates, gave more than 40 of the funds to the Grassroots Arizona PAC earlier this year. Grassroots Arizona was formed in order for McCain to get liberal and moderate Republicans elected to leadership positions and precinct committeemen posts in District 11, North Phoenix/Paradise Valley. Led by D11 Chairman Rob Haney, that district last year passed a resolution of censure against McCain for left-leaning political actions inconsistent with Republican philosophy.

Grassroots Arizona spent more than $16,000 in an effort to oust Haney and the conservatives controlling District 11, McCain's home district. The move failed miserably and Haney was re-elected handily last week -- over former Gov. Fife Symington.

The Sonoran Alliance traced $6,800 in contributions to Grassroots Arizona by the Wendt couple, who have also donated to several well-known Democrats and to McCain.

Sen. Jon Kyl, Cong. Jeff Flake, Rick Renzi and John Shadegg joined with the Wendts and other liberals in support of McCain's effort to change the leadership in District 11. In the words of the late Ricky Ricardo, they got some "splainin'" to do!

McCain's Handpicked District 11 Candidates Defeated; Former Governor Symington Sent Back to the Kitchen

Nov. 29, 2006

All the candidates for office in GOP Legislative District 11 (Phoenix) belonging to the Sen. John McCain faction, in an effort to capture the district leadership from conservatives, lost in Tuesday night's election.

Former governor Fife Symington was defeated by incumbent district chairman Rob Haney, 215-166.

Symington was not a gracious loser. On his way out, he suggested that proxy voting should be done away with. Symington and McCain have been friends for a long time.

John Acer won the race for first chair, and all of the other conservative candidates won against McCain's slate of RINOs. The margins in all races were substantial.

Haney said, "The true grassroots conservatives swept the pretend grassroots Republicans."

Symington, who attended the Scottsdale Culinary Institute after he was forced to resign from office on fraud convictions (later overturned; he was also pardoned by President Clinton), was sent "back to the kitchen" in a failed attempt to heat up his political career. Symington briefly considered running for governor last year, as well.

State Republican Party leadership also took a big roundhouse punch to the chin. Sen. Jon Kyl, Congressmen John Shadegg, Rick Renzi and Jeff Flake all wound up with egg on their faces for endorsing Symington. So did Maricopa County Attorney Andy Thomas, Corporation Commissioner Gary Pierce, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne and former legislator Laura Knaperek.

Thus, District 11 remains safely in conservative hands.

NOTES: Former Maricopa County GOP chair Tom Liddy had tried to peel off Haney supporters prior to the meeting. ... In the opening introduction of dignitaries present, Haney introduced Symington and said "wonder what he's doing here." Symington smiled and said, "You'll find out after the election results." ... In addition to Acer's victory, Tom Husband won second vice chair, Carolyn Berta was elected corresponding secretary, Charlotte Reed was elected recording secretary and George Teegarden was selected treasurer. ... Husband remarked that most of the PCs in attendance had been recruited by Haney.

Previous Story ...

McCain Sows Discord Among Republicans by Seeking to Oust Conservative District 11 Chair

By Dennis Durband, Editor
Nov. 27, 2006

Sowing Republican Party discord as he proceeds, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, is set to continue the battle for control of his home turf Tuesday night. It could be a fruitless endeavor for McCain, who may well win the presidential election in 2008, but who has been fighting a losing battle in his home Legislative District 11.

Now well into his second year of “warring” against conservative leadership in D11, McCain has thrown everything he’s got into removing Rob Haney as chairman of Legislative District 11. Haney is the man who in the summer of 2005 orchestrated a series of party resolutions critical of McCain’s abandonment of Republican principles
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McCain is an angry man who forgives no slight. His friend and the former governor of Arizona, Fife Symington, disgraced by removal from office for fraud convictions (later pardoned by President Clinton), will run against Haney Tuesday night for the district chairmanship. Symington is part of the McCain faction of candidates. Several prominent Republican office holders are backing Symington, thereby snubbing party platform and conservatism.

McCain formed a political action committee this summer in a failed attempt to elect enough moderate/liberal precinct committeemen to take control of GOP District 11. The move failed miserably. Some of McCain’s favored candidates for precinct committeemen brazenly supported Democrat Janet Napolitano in the governor’s election.

And now the party stands to suffer its second disastrous defeat in three weeks. Haney has recruited some 400 died-in-the-wool, platform-supporting conservative Republican precinct committeemen, and he has the votes to defeat the hearing-impaired, top-down leadership of the state party -- and their former governor candidate.
Symington and other candidates recruited by McCain to run for D11 leadership positions Tuesday have never before attended a District 11 meeting.

U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, congressmen John Shadegg, Rick Renzi and Jeff Flake, state Sen. Jim Waring, former legislator Laura Knaperek, Arizona Corporation Commissioner-elect Gary Pierce, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne and Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas have all signed a letter endorsing Symington.

Shadegg played the role of “party hammer” last year in trying to suppress the outbreak of anti-McCain resolutions passed around the state. He phoned Haney and attempted to make Haney back down on a resolution of censure aimed at McCain.

Renzi is one of the biggest pork barrel spenders in Congress.

Thomas received a tremendous amount of help from Haney in an unsuccessful 2002 run for attorney general, but the two have since had a falling out. Thomas punted on investigating ballot irregularities in District 20 in 2004, and he aligned himself with controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Flake supports amnesty legislation.

Waring is a former McCain staff member.

Knaperek opposed District 11’s defeat of former AZ GOP chairman Bob Fannin as a candidate for delegate to the state convention in 2004.

A longtime Democrat, Horne is a liberal Republican.

Pierce had a good record as a conservative in the state legislature who received McCain’s support in his successful ACC campaign.

Kyl stopped disseminating his weekly opinion column to The Arizona Conservative due to its ongoing criticism of McCain. Shadegg and AZ GOP chairman Matt Salmon warned conservatives last year that if they criticized McCain, Kyl's re-election would be in jeopardy this year. That proved to be a hollow threat.

Conservative bloggers around the state are buzzing about Tuesday’s leadership competition in D11 and are taking state Republican leadership to task for trying to punish a model Republican citizen. Moderate blogger Greg Patterson, the publisher of Espresso Pundit, is shilling for Symington and last week published a puff piece interview of the former governor, which has been highly criticized.

At heart of the debate is the Republican Party’s infatuation with a “Big Tent” philosophy which all but renders the GOP national platform irrelevant. Haney and his wife Marne are staunch and vocal defenders of the Republican Party’s conservative platform. The Republican Party lost its leadership in Congress and several state houses this month because of its insistence on filling up a Big Tent with people of all ideological stripes. Instead of filling it up, conservatives are highly skeptical of the Big Tent because there is no middle ground on issues as fundamental as the sanctity of life. As a direct result of the Big Tent philosophy, the Republican Party has now become the minority party, just as it was in the years before the conservative movement made it a majority.

Three weeks after losing its shirt in the Nov. 7th massacre, the Republican Party still has not learned to listen to grassroots members or honor its own platform. AZ GOP still insists on autocratic, top-down communication that condescends toward grassroots Republicans.

If the McCain forces win Tuesday night, though it does not appear they have the numbers to do so, it would not bode well for an increasingly undisciplined, undefined Republican Party. However, if McCain’s people lose, the senator may be forced to abandon his battle to gain control of D11 and instead focus on his national campaign to appeal to liberal Republicans, Democrats and liberal independents. Like Bob Dole in 1996, McCain will have great difficulty in energizing the Republican base in a 2008 presidential bid.

McCain, a calculating politician’s calculating politician, has done much to sow discord in the Arizona Republican Party. He has split party leadership and grassroots Republicans. The damage done by McCain and those in high-ranking positions seeking to punish Haney may never be repaired and may turn off many party loyalists.

Endorsements by conservative organizations are now open to question going into the 2008 election. No longer will the conservatives who support Symington be able to take conservative endorsements for granted.

It is readily apparent that the GOP will grasp onto any warm body who has a chance to win a presidential election, regardless of that person’s loyalty or legislative record.