With so many familiar players on the scene for the Arizona Republican Party elections coming up on Saturday, it might be worth revisiting the party election held six years ago.
Back then, conservatives were coming together behind former Congressman Frank Riggs, a conservative who was elected out of California before later moving to Arizona. But conservatives didn’t have nearly the numbers they have in today’s AZGOP and Riggs was seen as being close to then Congressman J.D Hayworth. This caused concern among Hayworth’s congressional rivals (Shadegg and Flake), while Riggs’ conservative support caused concern for Senator Jon Kyl who was up for re-election in 2006.
So Kyl recruited former Congressman and gubernatorial candidate turned lobbyist Matt Salmon to run for State Chairman. There was still considerable good will towards Salmon from his 2002 campaign and without the base of votes needed to make a real race of it, Riggs never began his campaign. Salmon was elected in January of 2005.
Of course, Salmon was a reluctant chairman, serving only because his Senator asked him to do so. Predictably, the Arizona Republican Party became little more than an offshoot of Kyl’s re-election campaign. Most of its resources and volunteers were directed towards Kyl’s race. Kyl won his race, but in the process Arizona Republicans suffered devastating losses as congressional candidates like J.D. Hayworth and Randy Graf were left high and dry without help. Republican legislative candidates were ignored and took a beating as well and Republican majorities dropped to dangerous levels. Our gubernatorial nominee received no help, except what he himself was able to raise through the party, and he got crushed by Janet Napolitano while Salmon’s hand-picked Executive Director agreed to not speak badly of Napolitano for the last few weeks of the campaign as a condition of his future employment with the Chamber of Commerce. With bare majorities that actually consisted of too many liberal Republicans, the Republican legislature got rolled over by Napolitano for the next two years, blowing up our state’s budget and getting us into the mess we still find ourselves in.
But Jon Kyl got re-elected, so it sounds like everything worked out just fine for him.
The year is now 2011 and Jon Kyl has once again emerged to handpick someone to run the Arizona Republican Party. Perhaps we should study our history so we are not doomed to repeat it?
Good Lord.
The Democrats are our main opponents.
Not our party’s Senators.
We would control the US Senate as well if we spent 1/4 the time attacking the Democrats as we do each other.
If you bothered to check facts, you’d realize the party diverted huge sums of money to keep the Hayworth campaign from imploding. Also, the Munsil campaign was actually run out of the AZ GOP headquarters. The notion that Glenn Hamer didn’t criticize Napolitano during the election is too ignorant and moronic to even respond to.
Steve, when McCain spends over $17 million of his PRESIDENTIAL campaign money on beating up a fellow Republican in a primary instead of having spent it trying to defeat Obama in the 2008 presidential election, I think it is reasonable to doubt whether our US Senators are really great for the GOP.
When they spend thousands of dollars trying to defeat hard working, conservative PCs, I think we can start to wonder if our US Senators are more concerned about their personal interests than the Republican Party.
When our US Senators deliberately scare away contributors and fund raisers from the AZ State GOP, a reasonable person could think they are putting themselves out as enemies of the state Republican Party.
When Kyl hijacks the state GOP for his 2006 reelection to the detriment of all other GOP candidates in Arizona, we can’t help but wonder if having him in control of the party is a good thing.
The Democrats are our main opponents, but the Senators aren’t our friends.
Wow. This entire thing is a feeble attempt to stretch was really has taken place over the last 5 years. The facts just aren’t there and the proof of this conspiracy is certainly lacking. While some of those things happened, they were not as tied as you are claiming.
AZ Dry Heat, you are right about the Munsil campaign being run out of the state GOP HQ. Up through the end of the primary, that was the case. I have heard from Munsil supporters that, after the primary, the state GOP was no longer providing help as they did during the primary. The Munsil campaign was essentially politely cut off from Congressional and state party support once they used Munsil to defeat Don Goldwater who was running on an anti-illegal alien platform which offended their sensibilities and those of their Chamber of Commerce financiers. Poor Len Munsil didn’t make it very high on the priority list of campaigns to receive party and Congressional support once he secured the nomination.
What will the McKyl bunch do without Russ Feingold, Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman to pal around with? It must be horrifying for them to be stumbling around not knowing any new Conservatives in Arizona or in Washington. It is time to Primary Jon McKyl. A vote for Carmichael IS a vote for team McKyl.
This post is out of bizzarro land.
2006 was a brutal, brutal year for the GOP nationally. I don’t think Matt should apologize for winning a race that you only get a shot at every six years. And the purported abandonement of JD is just nuts. The facts don’t back that up.
Excellent article SA. Maybe one of the best ever. I was there and you’ve got the facts nailed perfectly. Kyl’s only political priority is himself.
“The job of the party is to reelect me! Now elect Carmichael State Chairman like I’ve told you to do. The job of the Party faithful is to do what I say. Period.”
JD Hayworth out of congress is not a devastating loss. Please, would all of you filthy peasant transplants just leave already?