Arizona Politics for Conservatives: Sonoran Alliance
Arizona Politics, News, Commentary and Information with a Blatantly Conservative Worldview Presented by an Alliance of Writers, Activists, Consultants and Government Insiders.
Call him a lot of things but apparently McCain can do simple arithmetic. Why sit on a couch with Senators Lieberman and Graham in a state with 43 delegates when you can go campaign in a state with 173. We could not say it better than the New York Times:
In the last 24 hours, Mr. McCain and his aides have begun to fret about recent California polls showing a tighter race with Mitt Romney than they had expected. “I think it’s a lot closer,” Mr. McCain told reporters on his bus.
Ward Connerly, famous for getting ballot initiatives passed in several states banning racial preferences (aka government mandated affirmative action, or quotas), will be speaking at a breakfast at the Goldwater Institute this Thursday morning. The Goldwater Institute will be giving Sonoran Alliance readers an exclusive discount, just mention Sonoran Alliance and pay only $35 instead of $50. Connerly is behind an effort getting racial preference bans on the ballot in several states this fall including Arizona, called the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative. Opponents have formed a deceptively named group to fight it, “Protect Arizona’s Freedom,” which was immediately correctly renamed to “Protect Arizona’s Freedom to Discriminate in Government.” This is going to be one of the most closely watched ballot initiatives in the country this year, you’ll want to check out this breakfast and meet Connerly, who stands up to the special interests and takes a lot of heat from left wing minorities for taking a stand as an African-American who believes in true civil rights for all.
There is little doubt that the next president will appoint multiple justices to the Supreme Court. Many people have used that point when they advocate for voting for the Republican nominee instead of the Democrat. I am not going to join Ann Coulter in her strange rant but I will examine the history of Republican appointments to the court.
The Supreme Court has 9 justices, 8 associates and the chief justice. Currently there are 4 liberals, 4 conservatives, and one swing vote. The 4 conservatives were all appointed by Republican presidents (1.) So far so good. The one swing vote, Kennedy, was appointed by Reagan. Fair enough. Among the 4 liberal justices 2 were appointed by Republicans (2.) That is a pretty mixed record. If Republicans presidents had appointed consistently conservative justices then we would have had a strict constructionist court a long time ago.
When you look at two of the worst court decisions ever, Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton, you find that 5 of the justices were appointed by Republican presidents (3.) One of the dissenters on Roe and Doe was actually appointed by a Democrat (4.) These two decisions were not only disastrous for the cause of innocent human life they invented an unwritten “right” from the penumbra (shadow) of the constitution. Excuse me! Five justices appointed by Republican presidents invented a “right” from the shadow of the constitution.
There is no absolute way to tell the a president will make good appointments to the count. Certainly the Republican label is very close to meaningless. You must look at the conservative record of the person making the appointment and even that is not a perfect system.
1. Reagan appointed Scalia, Bush(41) appointed Thomas, and Bush(43) appointed Roberts and Alito.
2. Ford appointed Stevens and Bush (41) gave us Souter.
3. Eisenhower appointed Brennan and Stewart. Nixon appointed Burger, Blackman, and Powell.
4. Kennedy appointed White.
News flash: The latest Massachusetts poll has Romney ahead by 13%. After McCain’s visit to Boston that is still better than McCain’s numbers in Arizona where he is only 9% ahead without Romney spending the Super Bowl in Phoenix.
In the last debate McCain was quite proud of being endorsed by the very conservative Boston Herald. Since McCain spent yesterday and this morning in Boston we thought we would see what the very conservative Boston Herald thought of his visit:
It’s odd that on the eve of Super Tuesday, the 71-year-old Republican front-runner would be here, in his top challenger’s home state, where he’s running a mere 32 points behind.
Why isn’t he stumping in California, the nation’s biggest state? Out there he’s running neck and neck, or just a little behind, Mitt Romney ahead. If Mitt somehow pulls out a victory in the Golden State tomorrow, he stays alive.
The only reason McCain is here this morning is to rub Mitt’s nose in the fact that he, not Mitt, is winning. He resents Romney, because in the Dreaded Private Sector, Mitt was a runaway success, while McCain’s only experience was in the son-in-law business.
And this is from a paper that endorsed McCain. Interesting endorsement.
