Posted on 06/12/2005 11:51:11 AM PDT by Spiff
By Dennis Durband, Editor
June 11, 2005
SCOTTSDALE -- No, Donald Trump, U.S. Senator John McCain has not been fired. On Saturday, the Arizona Republican Assembly (ARA) voted unanimously during its annual state convention to censure Arizona’s senior senator.
McCain has seriously alienated his conservative base in the 21st century. However, he has greatly enamored himself with liberals and he easily won re-election in November with his new liberal support base. The conservatives who make up the ARA membership have had enough of what they consider a betrayal by McCain and they took advantage of their annual resolution ritual to take action against the liberal metamorphosis of the presidential hopeful.
The censure measure will be sent to Matt Salmon, chairman of the Arizona GOP -- with hopes of a state party censure as well -- to all Republican county and legislative district chairmen and will be issued as a press release to the media. No one spoke in support of McCain during discussion of the resolution.
ARA member Bruce Barton, of Safford, authored the resolution. The reasons behind the censure focus specifically on McCain’s amnesty bill for illegal aliens, for deserting the ranks of the Republican Party by undermining Senate President Bill Frist’s recent attempt to change a filibuster cloture rule and for ignoring constitutional concerns with his campaign finance reform law.
Public opinion on the ARA censure ran favorably all week long. A non-scientific GOPUSA/Arizona poll drawing 213 responses resulted in 93.4 percent approval of the censure.
Though a motion for censure Saturday drew unanimous approval, the ARA’s senior member, Louis Stradling, of Mesa, offered up an amendment that would have added stronger language to the document. Stradling suggested an amendment to the resolution that would have charged McCain with “malfeasance.” That move failed when Barton said he agrees with the spirit of Stradling’s suggestion, but he felt the word “malfeasance” might have added a legal sticking point that ARA would be better off avoiding. After the proposed amendment failed, ARA delegates enthusiastically and without dissent approved the resolution to censure McCain.
The resolution reads as follows:
WHEREAS, Senator John McCain is presently co-sponsoring, together with his Democrat soul-mate, Senator Teddy Kennedy, a Bill to Reform the Immigration Policy of the United States promoting amnesty for illegal aliens and for their U.S. employers, thus ignoring the opinions of his constituents expressed in numerous polls and personal pleas; and
WHEREAS, Senator McCain deserted the ranks of the Republican Party and the Leadership of the U.S. Senate on the issue of limiting the filibuster of judicial nominations, some of which have been on-hold for several years, thus stalling the President’s agenda for judicial reform; and
WHEREAS, Senator McCain led the Democrat Party in “reforming” campaign finance, providing for a clear usurpation of 1st Amendment free speech rights during the last 60 days of an election campaign, and leading to an orgy of spending in the 2004 elections;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Arizona Republican Assembly (ARA) officially and publicly censures Senator John McCain for dereliction of his duties and responsibilities as a representative of the citizens of Arizona; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the ARA strongly urges State Republican Party Chairman, Matt Salmon, the Arizona State Republican Party and its County and Legislative District affiliates to officially and publicly express their displeasure with Senator McCain by means of a public censure; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that copies of this Resolution be sent to the Chairman of the State Republican Party, to all Republican County and Legislative District Chairman and be issued as a Press Release to the media.
The likelihood of persuading Arizona GOP to get on board with the censure is practically nil. The state party typically takes a neutral approach to wayward Republican office holders.
Saturday's censure was just the latest incident of protest against McCain in the past four years. Last year, several people demonstrated peacefully outside McCain's Tempe office over his refusal to support the proposed federal marriage amendment. In 2001, two McCain recall movements arose against the senator. The leaders of those two organizations combined their efforts into one joint recall and then permanently suspended operations upon the events of Sept, 11, 2001. Also that year, opponents of McCain gathered for public opposition rallies in Scottsdale and Tempe.
McCain is expected to seek the GOP presidential nomination again in 2008.
McCain must be stopped. The grassroots needs to bet together to do this. Similar resolutions to this one that was unanimously passed should be proposed and passed in each and every Republican organization in the United States. This groundswell of opposition to McCain would go far in derailing his rise to power. I will be proposing this resolution in the next meeting of my Republican Club and our local party. We can do this. We MUST do this.
you know, this just illustrates how the word "traitor" is being thrown around here WAYYYYY to loosely these days.
If any RINO does not fit the word "traitor", it is John McCain.
Not that I agree with him on just about ANYTHING, but I will not call him a traitor, especially after his experiences in Vietnam.
I will call him a media hound, Dean Jr., the mad squirrel, but not traitor.
Good for you folks in AZ....but why do you keep sending him back to D.C. in the first place?
BTTT
Only one vote counts ... and my guess is he will consistantly win re-election as long as he wants it.
Ping! You should find this interesting.
And if there is no choice?
What ever respect and honor due the speech 'god' he himself is responsible for .issing it down the drain. POW or not this guy is out for himself and nothing else.
Please keep us plugged in on your progress. I believe many of us in California would like to help out with donations to nail this RINO. Let us know.
You can betray your political party without being a traitor to your country.
Hell, the nitwits here even elected Janet NapaloReno as Governor.
But it's about time McCain was shown the door for the RINO he is.
I would be willing to bet that if we put a poll up on FR, traitor would make more people think of Jane Fonda and what SHE did, not some piddly-@$$ stuff McCain thinks he is doing to prop himself up for another failed Presidential run....
The Democrats keep re-electing McCain. The only good thing about it is that the Dummies at the Underground probably puke at the thought of electing a RINO as their standard bearer.
What metamorphasis?
John McCain was a member of the Keating Five. The other four were Democrats. John has been hangin' with the left for a long long time.
If I were running Arizona's RP, John McCain would no longer be a member.
I'd run someone else and let this ------ ------ ------- wither on the vine. It's the John McCains of the party that have really screwed it into the ground.
Spread the word far and wide. Now if they'd just censure Kolbe too.
This Iowan will not support him at the caucus and I can't imagine he will get much of a following in Iowa.
While I agree that he served this country honorably, and that his experience in Viet Nam was horrendous--none of that gives him the right to write unconstitutional legislation. The fact that way too many Republicans voted for his bill, IMHO, makes the whole bunch of them traitorous to the Constitution of the United States of America.
McCain won't be on the 2008 ballot unless he wins the Democrat nomination.
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