Posted on 09/05/2006 4:29:11 PM PDT by Spiff
By JENNIFER TALHELM
WASHINGTON Sep 5, 2006 (AP)— Arizona Republicans in a crowded House primary lashed out at the national GOP Tuesday for taking sides in the race. "They're idiots," one candidate said.
The National Republican Congressional Committee last week backed a candidate in the primary, launching a $122,000 advertising campaign for state Rep. Steve Huffman. The party contends Huffman is a moderate candidate who could win the district in November.
On Tuesday, Huffman's four more conservative GOP opponents took the unusual step of holding a joint news conference and delivering a message to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
"Stay the hell out of southern Arizona," said Mike Hellon, one of the candidates and a former state party chairman, in an interview following the news conference.
The four contend the NRCC had split the party, handing an advantage to the Democrats. They urged the NRCC to pull its ads and stay quiet until after the Sept. 12 primary.
"This is the granddaddy of unintended consequences," Hellon said in the interview. "They're idiots."
"Noted," responded NRCC spokesman Ed Patru, who would not comment further about the division the party may have created.
The other four candidates are considered more conservative than Huffman. Besides Hellon, Huffman faces Randy Graf, a former state lawmaker, Frank Antenori and Mike Jenkins.
Huffman was hand-picked by retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe, a moderate Republican who has held the House seat for 22 years. While Huffman has led the pack in fundraising, there is no clear favorite in the race.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.GOP Primary Ad in Arizona Sparks Protest
GOP Primary Ad in Arizona Sparks Protest From Other Candidates
[This is WRONG! The AP is either intentionally lying or they did not do some simple homework. The big news 2 weeks ago was that, despite Huffman being the coronated Kolbe clone and leading in fundraising, that Graf was ahead in the opinion polls by 3 to 1. There is DEFINITELY a clear favorite and the AP should issue a correction to this erroneous story. Go here for just one of several news stories about the poll results. -spiff]
Plus, and I'll try to get footage of the press conference up later, it looks to me that the writer has totally mischaracterized the tone of the press conference. Everyone that I've heard from that attended said that it was a yawner. You wouldn't know that from this article where it leads with one candidate calling the NRCC "Idiots" and tries to make it look like the event was contentious with a lot of name-calling and cursing.
Need to look into this AP writer further and find out what is up with her and why she'd write such a weird piece. But, the bottom line is that the NRCC is inappropriately interfering in an OPEN primary and they should not be. When called on it they either won't respond or they say something like "Noted." and won't respond further.
Ping. Please ping others in SE AZ if you can.
The party contends Huffman is a moderate candidate who could win the district in November.
"This is the granddaddy of unintended consequences,"
This is not unintended. The NRCC would rather a RAT win than one of you.
This is being done by design.
Pinging you to this thread for your consideration.
APf
The frontrunner, despite being opposed by the elite establishment Republicans and being outspent by a considerable amount, is conservative Randy Graf. He leads by 3 to 1. The NRCC is gunning for him, plain and simple, as they do now want a borderhawk who has been endorsed by Tom Tancredo to be elected. They know that he will be a pain in their side - and he will be. But the NRCC does not have the right to do what they did. I expect to see a formal complaint filed by members of the NRCC about this inappropriate action. But that will be too late to stop the damage already done by the huge media buy and the constantly running ads promoting Huffman. They just made another $70 buy in more media and robo calls that are running throughout the district now. The NRCC has pulled out all stops to defeat the conservative frontrunner and it is outrageous!
I called the Associated Press and reported the gross inaccuracy in the last paragraph. They said that they would pass it on. Right...
Stupid - not to mention a waste of money.
Aug 30th article:
"Huffman was hand-picked by retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe, a moderate Republican who has held the House seat for 22 years. While Huffman has led the pack in fundraising, there is no clear favorite in the race."Sep 5th article:
Huffman was hand-picked by retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe, a moderate Republican who has held the House seat for 22 years. While Huffman has led the pack in fundraising, there is no clear favorite in the race."
The media-run opinion polls were released on 23 August.
Bad Reporter. Bad!
Right. He is not a sitting member of the caucus - totally out of bounds for them to intervene like this in the primary with no incumbent.
It's a waste of Republican donor money. Money that was donated SPECIFICALLY to support Republicans AGAINST Democrats. Not to favor one liberal Republican over a conservative one. The NRCC collected and distributed over $45 million in 2004. You can see how powerful they are with that much money and how many Republican donors may be outraged by their misuse of the funds that were raised.
One ray of sunshine.
The 'Rats are running ads against Huffman,now
And this is why an endorsement from the GOP is meaningless any longer. It's why I won't donate to them directly. Shame it's become standard for the House now. They should have learned an example from the heat Dole's committee has taken for the Chafee/Laffey race.
What is becoming very obvious is that the GOP made little to no effort to recruit strong candidates in conservative states against Dems. They recruited in moderate and Liberal states instead. They are abusing the trust of their donors to interfere in primaries. They are choosing the liberals over the conservatives in the primaries. The GOP has made its loyalties clear. Which is why they don't have my loyalty.
The Republican Party vs. conservatives...what else is new?
It is outrageous!
I hope the Tancredo endorsed candidate wins.
"Stay the hell out of southern Arizona," said Mike Hellon, one of the candidates and a former state party chairman, in an interview following the news conference.
This is completely absurd. Randy Graf is a completely viable candidate, at least as viable as RINO Steve Huffman.
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