House candidate Paton focuses on border during Sierra Vista town hall meeting

SIERRA VISTA Herald/Review ^

[SandRat]

SIERRA VISTA — Promising people some straight talk — a page from Arizona Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain’s campaign style — Jonathan Paton spoke about his credentials and why he should be the GOP candidate to take on incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

While there are four other GOP candidates in the race for the party’s nod to seek Arizona’s 8th Congressional seat, Paton is spending most of his energy running against Giffords’ two-term record.

Saturday, he spoke to nearly 30 people — one of them making a video of the event for the Democrats — at a town hall meeting at the Sierra Vista library. He outlined his views on different subjects and took questions from those who attended the 90-minute event.

Most of the time centered on border and immigration issues.

Paton called into question the attitude of Congress on the border.

Saying he was once asked to testify before the Democratic-controlled House Government Reform Committee, the candidate said it wasn’t until he arrived in Washington that he learned the subject matter of the hearing. That was more about Americans causing problems in Mexico, which was leading that nation into problems involving guns, drugs and violence. He had been asked to testify by Arizona Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake.

But Paton said he would not take a bite of what the Democrats were offering — blaming U.S. citizens for Mexico’s woes — instead telling the committee members, “If you want to fix the problems in Mexico, you got to fix the border.”

Which to him meant securing the international boundary, cutting off the access into the United States of illegal immigrants and drugs.

He said what the Democrats didn’t want to hear, because they were looking for another reason for gun controls in the U.S., was that what finds its way into Mexico to give cartels firepower comes from other nations, with the U.S. being a much smaller provider, Paton said.

Another thing they didn’t want to hear was that the problems in Mexico are of their citizens’ own making and that the responsibility of the U.S. government was to protect American citizens from the spillover coming into the U.S., he said.

Noting Phoenix has the second-highest number of kidnappings in the country, the majority of which are due to the illegal immigrant trade, Paton said too many in Congress are in a “blame the U.S.” mood.

There have been many decisions made which are tearing the nation apart economically, which will only continue under the leadership of the Democrats, Paton said.

He promised never to become a Washington insider.

[itsahoot]

Paton called into question the attitude of Congress on the border.

We have many closeted homosexuals serving in Congress, is it any more unlikely that we have closeted "Progressives" in the Republican Party?

[NaughtiusMaximus]

So where are DemocRAT incumbents at these Town Halls?

(Crickets chirping.)

[HiJinx]

Ping!