Posted on 01/27/2007 1:28:46 PM PST by Spiff
Conservatives in Arizona can have a little more hope now that their views will begin to be represented in the Arizona Republican Party. The AZ GOP State Convention was held today and, after a contentious and close race for the chairmanship, conservative Republican Randy Pullen won by a slim margin of 408 to 404. His opponent, Lisa James, was hand-picked by Sen. John McCain and represented the moderate, establishment Republican wing of the state party. Although she did pick up a handful of conservative supporters, for the most part her supporters were the liberals, moderates, and RINOs of the party.
Randy Pullen, who has well represented Republican conservatives in Arizona as National Committeeman since 2004, was one of the organizers of the successful Proposition 200. The proposition, which restricted public benefits to illegal aliens and enacted ID requirements for voters, passed overwhelmingly in 2004 despite opposition from the leaders of the state party and almost every member of Arizona's congressional delegation. Pullen was narrowly elected in 2004 in a heated battle against the incumbent national committeeman, RINO, pro-abortion, pro-amnesty Mike Hellon.
Pullen recently made news when he was one of the leaders in the Republican National Committee of a group of committeeman opposing the election of pro-amnesty Sen. Mel Martinez to a non-existant position of "General Chairman". Pullen has also been instrumental in retaining strong pro-life language in the Republican Party Platform as well as the addition of language calling for border security without amnesty.
Pullen's election is a slap in the face to McCain who has been repeatedly embarassed by state and county Republican organizations who have voted to censure him and declare that they will not support his run for the Presidency. In 2004, against McCain's strong opposition, the state party delegates passed a resolution endorsing Proposition 200. In 2005, the Maricopa County Republican Party (the largest in the state) as well as some other county Republican parties, voted to censure McCain for his liberal, anti-Republican views and votes. Earlier this month a Straw Poll was run in the Maricopa County Republican Party and McCain topped the list of undesirable candidates. McCain's hopes of turning his opposition around in his home state were dashed as his candidate for state party chairman was defeated. His strategy this time was to run a pro-life, semi-conservative candidate that he could control. Instead, the conservative who is a hero among the grassroots of the party, won the race.
The election of a conservative to the state party chairmanship comes as good news to southeastern Arizona Republicans who supported Randy Graf for Congress in District 8. During last year's Republican Primary in CD8, the well-financed, establishment RINO candidate, Steve Huffman, began a campaign of lies, smears, and distortions against frontrunner Randy Graf. The current state party chairman at that time, former Congressman Matt Salmon, did nothing to keep the race clean and allowed the lies and smears to continue unabated. This, despite a promise the year prior to Republicans in that district that he would not allow that kind of dirty campaigning to occur while he was chairman. Then, when the National Republican Congressional Committee unethically interfered in the primary election and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Huffman, the establishment RINO candidate, in opposition to conservative Randy Graf, again Salmon did nothing.
Graf won the primary election but entered the general election severely damaged by the attacks. Graf was abandoned by the state and national party organizations in the general election. The Democrat candidate, not missing a beat, picked up on the same lies and smears and went on to beat Graf, flipping the district from Republican to Democrat representation in Congress. Conservatives in southeastern Arizona vowed to have Salmon's head for betraying southeastern Arizona Republicans. But Salmon, reading the writing on the wall, announced his resignation which opened up the chairmanship position.
Randy Pullen and Randy Graf worked together as primary organizers of the Proposition 200 effort. Pullen was also a strong supporter of the Graf campaign. Pullen's election is strong vindication for Graf and his supporters.
In the other race at the state convention, the race for Treasurer was won by Tim Lee against nudist Horst Kraus. Kraus owns the Shangri-La Ranch, a nudist colony, and even appears nude on the colony's website. He has invited past controversy for holding regular teen nudist camps in the summer. In 2004 a 13-year-old who was living with his mother at the nudist colony was molested in Kraus's pool by a child molester. Kraus found himself in even more trouble when he appeared as a character witness on behalf of the child molester and testified against the 13-year-old victim. The child molester was convicted and given a severe prison sentence. Kraus still stayed involved in Republican Politics and found wide support among RINOs in the party who quickly came to his defense. Horst Kraus and his wife Gigi were counted among Lisa James' public supporters, an endorsement she was not ashamed of and published on her campaign website.
Thanks for taking the time to write this piece and post it at FR.
It is great to hear some good news.
You're welcome. I'm sure some news stories came out about the convention today and I plan to talk to the county chairman tomorrow to find out what else happened at the convention. I'll post what I can find.
I wasn't aware of this news until I read your article.
Its been a while since I posted. Tired of the RINOs on the board. So just lurking mostly. Thanks for the ping. I am seriously considering joining the Constitution party. The RINOs are taking this party down the drains - as well as FR.
How soon we forget bump....
“In 2004, against McCain’s strong opposition, the state party delegates passed a resolution endorsing Proposition 200. In 2005, the Maricopa County Republican Party (the largest in the state) as well as some other county Republican parties, voted to censure McCain for his liberal, anti-Republican views and votes. Earlier this month a Straw Poll was run in the Maricopa County Republican Party and McCain topped the list of undesirable candidates”
“after a contentious and close race for the chairmanship, conservative Republican Randy Pullen won by a slim margin of 408 to 404. His opponent, Lisa James, was hand-picked by Sen. John McCain and represented the moderate, establishment Republican wing of the state party.”
Hopefully a very good omen. McBackstabber better take note.
Dream on. McCain is a cold forged liberal butt licker. Conservatism is just another obstacle in his mind.
Hats off to the AZ GOP.
IMO, keeping the trojan horse RINOs from controlling the state party is a huge step.
I’d like to see similar progress in California (where our party was most recently
caught in a scandal hiring illegal aliens to top posts.)
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