Archive for the 'John McCain' Tag
November 3rd, 2009, 12:21 pm by Le Templar
A day after the Tribune’s parent company announced it will close the newspaper and its web sites on Dec. 31, I am surprised and heartened by the extensive range of people who have told me they are shocked by the news, saddened by the pending loss of a community voice, and praying for my colleagues and their futures. Even Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on Twitter this morning that it’s a “sad day,” which is impressive given the Tribune’s ups and downs with him.
But the reaction of other Valley journalists assigned to cover this news story was a little puzzling. As you might expect, those other publications wanted to hear from Tribune employees, to share their story in some fashion. However, as has been reported elsewhere, Tribune Publisher Julie Moreno asked that all media inquiries be referred to her office or to a public relations firm hired by the newspaper’s owner, Freedom Communications.
So those journalists got increasingly frustrated when no one else at the Tribune would speak with them. KPNX-TV (Channel 12) posted a camera crew outside the Tribune’s front door for several hours. Several newsroom staff members (including me) received a number of emails, phone calls and Facebook messages. They were generally polite and understanding, but some reporters practically begged us to comment.
The Arizona Republic and HeatCity.org got around the problem by interviewing former Tribune employees who were laid off (or retired) from the Tribune in January. But Heat City writer Nick Martin asked a question that I think was on the minds of many: Why would a company named Freedom Communications not allow its employees to speak freely? And why would employees about to lose their jobs honor a request to stay silent? I have a couple of thoughts:
- Freedom has a standing policy that only select executives are supposed to speak for one of its media outlets or the company as a whole. The policy was in place long before the current situation with the Tribune and Freedom’s bankruptcy proceedings.
- In fact, nearly every media corporation has a similar policy. Call it hypocritical if you want, but I challenge any of the reporters working for corporate media yesterday to say with sincerity that they would be free to talk if their employer was in a crisis. It’s how the corporate world works.
- No one at Freedom issued any threats if an employee ignored the publisher’s request. But honestly, why would anyone risk losing their job early, and any severance pay after the newspaper closes, just to give a quote to another media outlet?
- This story is about more than the 140 people who currently work at the Tribune. It’s about what the Mesa newspaper has meant to the community for the past 118 years, from its pioneer roots to its Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. I’m not sure anyone here gave much thought to quoting our colleagues in our first story about the newspaper’s closure. We wanted to share what the East Valley was thinking about the news of the day.
We at the Tribune will have plenty to say in the coming weeks and months about what this newspaper has meant to us. You can read a little bit of that in tomorrow’s editions. But our first priority Monday was the story and its impact on the community, not ourselves, just the way that the professionals at the Tribune always have done their jobs.
Posted in: Journalism • Arizona Republican • East Valley Tribune • Heat City • John McCain • KPNX-TV • Nick Martin • Phoenix Business Journal | 2 Comments »
September 15th, 2009, 2:04 pm by Le Templar
 Mitt Romney/Associate Press photo If you believe you should be president, typically you are extremely self-confident and able to dream big. Well, Republican Mitt Romney must have both qualities in spades. Invitations went out to today for a Sept. 30 appearance by Romney here in the Valley to raise money for his Free and Strong America PAC. Romney is offering tickets from $300 to $3,000 for a noon luncheon at Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Romney is not trying to fill a meeting room or a luxury box, but the entire baseball stadium! Blogger Bill Wyman noted that a sell-out (at $3,000 for each seat) would raise $15 million.
Renting out Chase Field for a political fundraiser might be overly optimistic. Romney has strong political support in Arizona, including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, state Senate Majority Leader Chuck Gray, R-Mesa, and Mesa real estate developer Wilford Cardon. But this state didn’t figure that prominently in Romney fundraising during the 2008 campaign.
However, Romney hopes to capitalize on his strong, second place finish in the 2008 Arizona presidential primary to home state hero John McCain. Arizona’s senior senator won’t be a factor in 2012, while Romney has been preparing for that race from the day that Barack Obama was declared last year’s winner.
Posted in: Election issues • Presidential campaign • 2012 elections • Chase Field • Chuck Gray • Joe Arpaio • John McCain • Mitt Romney • Wilford Cardon | 1 Comment »
June 23rd, 2009, 5:01 pm by Le Templar
Phoenix Republican Jim Deakin believes he represents the real mainstream of his party, and so he’s aiming to upset Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in next year’s state primary. But I hope most party activists understand our country’s geography and history better than Deakin apparently does.
In a news release today, Deakin seeks to weigh in on racial politics and President Barack Obama’s nomination of appellete judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Deakin goes about it in an odd way, by suggesting Sotomayor’s family is from the foreign country of … Puerto Rico.
First off, Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, as in New York City, as in the first national capital of the United States. So any attempt to somehow taint her homegrown nationality by tossing around the word “emigrate” is in of itself insulting.
Yes, her parents were from Puerto Rico. While not one of the 50 states, Puerto Rico has been a fully functioning U.S. territory or commonwealth since 1917. Every native is a full-blooded U.S. citizen and moving to or from Puerto Rico is nearly as easy as spending the summer in San Diego.
Sure, in prior centuries, Puerto Rico was subject to the rule of several foreign countries and Spanish is prominently spoken on the island. But that’s the history of more than one U.S. state as well.
Republicans are debating this summer among themselves just hard to challenge Sotomayor’s appointment, given her easy confirmations to the federal bench in the past and the fact that Obama will insist on liberal credentials for any potential replacement.
Deakin’s comments (as you can see below) add little that’s constructive to that debate:
If Jim Deakin were the Senator from the great State of Arizona he would have one question for Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
In several of your speeches over the years you have said that a Latino Woman would make better decisions than an Old White Man.
Your family emigrated to the United States of America from Puerto Rico.
Why did your family migrate from a country where the laws are written by Latino Men and Women to the United States of America where the US Constitution was written by a bunch of OLD WHITE GUYS?
Jim Deakin is a candidate for US Senate from Arizona in the 2010 Elections.
For the record, the U.S. Constitution generally is in effect in Puerto Rico as well. And many Puerto Ricans moved to the New York and other American cities shortly after U.S. annexation because the island was dirt-poor with few jobs early in the 20th century, sort of like what happened in the 1930s in Oklahoma.
Posted in: Courts • Election issues • Barack Obama • Jim Deakin • John McCain • Puerto Rico • Sonia Sotomayor | 2 Comments »
April 22nd, 2009, 9:53 pm by Le Templar
 Republican Chris Simcox launches his bid Monday for the U.S. Senate at the state Capitol in Phoenix (Capitol Media Services). I didn’t attend the press conference today at which Chris Simcox formally began a campaign to defeat U.S. Sen. John McCain in the 2010 Republican primary. But I’m not surprised his announcement was dominated by the issue that has kept him in the spotlight for the past four years: stopping illegal immigration. Simcox gained attention in political circles after he founded the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and took his cause nationwide with the 2005 call for civilian patrols based in Tombstone that inspired new chapters and copycat organizations across the country. Even though McCain was the 2008 Republican candidate for president, his popularity has slipped within his home state party in part because of his support for comprehensive immigration reform, which critics see as code for immigrant amnesty. The issue is likely to heat up again this year as President Barack Obama has pledged to seek passage of immigration policy changes that have failed in Congress recently.
But as McCain began his bid for president, he retreated from comprehensive immigration reform to support a “secure the border first” stance. He repeats those words no matter how hard he’s pressed now (scroll down to the 8 a.m. hour on April 15).
Simcox will have to become competitive on other issues, or he’ll never be a serious threat to McCain. Here’s my evidence as to why:
- Jim Gilchrist of Aliso Viejo, Calif., was Simcox’s partner in 2005 when the Minuteman movement got underway. Later that year Gilchrist ran for the U.S. House as a third-party candidate during a special election in his conservative district. He did relatively well, but he never really challenged the eventually Republican winner.
- Closer to home, Don Goldwater (nephew of Barry Goldwater) ran for the Republican nomination for Arizona governor in 2006 and was supported by Simcox because Goldwater made illegal immigration a centerpiece of his campaign. But he lost by a wide margin to Len Munsil, whose comments on the issue were more moderate (as far as Republicans go).
- Former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., also lost his bid for re-election in 2006 after a well-publicized shift to the right on immigration issues during the prior two years. Hayworth routinely claims that Democrat Harry Mitchell actually had TV campaign ads that were tougher on illegal immigration than Hayworth’s own campaign. But I have yet to speak to a voter in the 5th Congressional District who so confused in 2006 as to believe that Mitchell was closer to Simcox’s views than Hayworth.
- State Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, has to be the best known Arizona politician who campaigns for really tough immigration policies, after Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Pearce has been urged by Simcox and others to run either for governor or the U.S. House. But Pearce has backed off from both after he realized that an immigration-centered campaign wouldn’t capture enough voters and also would turn away many would-be donors who want more expansive immigration policies.
Simcox’s best chance is voter turnout for the 2010 primary could be incredibly low, as first noted by blogger Greg Patterson. That means only the most active and loyal Republicans will cast ballots, and some of McCain’s loudest critics come from that crowd. But any Republican who upsets McCain likely would be vulnerable to a Democrat in the general election, which is why I expect most of the Republican Party machinery to unite behind the senator. That will leave Simcox sitting at home after the 2010 primary, assuming he makes it that far.
Here’s a short video clip of Simcox’s press conference:
Posted in: Congress • Election issues • Immigration • 2010 • Chris Simcox • illegal immigration • John McCain | Post a Comment »
February 9th, 2009, 5:52 pm by Le Templar
Photo by the Associated Press
My blog has been on hiatus for a week or so as I adjust to the demands of my new post as opinion page editor at the Tribune, and I handled some of my volunteer work for local journalism groups. But I’m back, with a post I’ve been waiting to write for more than two years: Republicans should be immediately and eternally grateful that Sen. John McCain shut down the “nuclear” option when it comes to Senate approval for judges appointed to the federal bench.
Last week’s news that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer reinforced widespread belief that she will be the first liberal jurist to leave now that Barack Obama is president. Speculation on possible replacements already is rampant. Even a certain former Arizona governor is getting lots of attention.
While the next Supreme Court justice appointment probably will come from Ginsburg’s legal perspective, that person won’t be as wildly liberal as many in the Democratic Party would like. That’s because Obama will have to deal with a potential Senate filibuster from Republicans if he steps too far out of the mainstream. And Republicans are in a position to influence Obama’s judicial choices only because of John McCain and the so-called Gang of 14.
A quick recap: Almost from the beginning of former President George Bush’s first term in 2001, Senate Democrats who were in the minority used the threat of a filibuster to delay or block appointments of federal judges that were deemed to be too conservative. Time and again, Bush tried but failed to persuade enough Democrats to relent to get the 60 Senate votes needed to stop a filibuster.
So conservative activists came up with an alternative route for Bush to get the judges he wanted. They argued a filibuster of judicial appointments violates the Constitution because that document says nothing about needing more than a simple majority of senators to give their “advice and consent.” The idea was to have Vice President Dick Cheney (as Senate president) declare a filibuster as out of order so the Republican majority could ignore the Democrats and approve Bush’s appointments. The Senate loves its traditions and the filibuster is one of the oldest. Revoking it in this manner would have caused endless rancor and pushed partisan politics to a whole new level in Washington. Thus the reference to the “nuclear” option.
Republicans were ready to reach for the nuclear option in 2005, when Democrats were trying to block the appointment of John Roberts as chief justice. But many senators greatly feared chaos would result because most Senate work depends heavily on lawmakers getting along. Otherwise, the rules as written on paper could be used to prevent any business from getting done.
So a bipartisan collection of 14 senators met privately for days to find a way to avert the nuclear option. The result was enough Democrats withdrew their filibuster threats for Bush to get his nominees.
John McCain received much of the credit for the Gang of 14 agreement, so he should have been widely praised by fellow Republicans for protecting tradition but without bowing to the will of the minority. Instead, McCain was roundly criticized for his role, as GOP activists argued he had somehow betrayed the party by not steamrolling the Democrats.
However, McCain had enough experience and wisdom to envision a day down the road when Republicans would be in the minority and a Democratic president would be eager to put his stamp on the Supreme Court. That day is here, and if Republicans had invoked the nuclear option in 2005, the 57 Democrat votes in the Senate now would be free to completely ignore the GOP side of the aisle.
That’s not to say Republican will be able to prevent appointments of pro-choice jurists. But Obama will have to win at least few Republican votes. Or maybe just one, that of Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican (and former chairman) of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specter’s support of an Obama appointment will swing enough Republican votes to avoid any filibuster.
But at least the Republicans won’t be completely ignored.
Posted in: Congress • Courts • Uncategorized • Arlen Specter • Barack Obama • Gang of 14 • John McCain • John Roberts | Post a Comment »
November 4th, 2008, 10:24 pm by Le Templar
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN AND CINDY MCCAIN BRING ELECTION DAY 2008 TO A CLOSE BEFORE SUPPORTERS TUESDAY NIGHT AT THE ARIZONA BILTMORE RESORT AND SPA. (AP Photo)
Arizona Sen. John McCain took the stage far too early Tuesday night for his Republican stalwarts, because it meant he was conceding defeat, and the presidency, to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
I hadn’t understood why the McCain campaign decided several weeks ago to build a special stage on an outside lawn at the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa. The resort has several large ballrooms that typically are used for such gatherings, and one such room indeed served as the election party headquarters for the evening.
But tonight, I realized that McCain was trying to keep pace with what the Obama campaign had planned for Chicago’s Grant Park. A unexpected victory for McCain would have meant quite a show under a pair of towering banners and two rows of sky-high spotlights in the colors of blue and yellow.
However, with the bad news flowing in all night, the McCain crowd was pretty deflated and didn’t fill the area that had been set aside to hear the senator in person.
McCain didn’t delay the pain when he came out with vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin and their respective spouses. The senator immediately told the crowd that “American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly,” and that he had called Obama to congratulate the president-elect.
Later in the 10-minute concession address, McCain took on his supporters’ pain as his own, saying about the 2008 loss “the failure is mine, not yours,” and “I don’t know what else I could have done to win this election.”
The cheers from crowd (and occasional boo when McCain spoke graciously about Obama) turned into anger for some when McCain was finished, and several people at the back turned around to vent at the various TV reporters standing on risers behind them.
“You slimy bastards!” shouted one man who stood out among the mostly well-dressed audience in his blue-jean jacket and blue-jean pants. “You got what you wanted, Barack Obama!”
The same man immediately turned to his neighbor and pointed to a election button with Palin’s face on his chest, “2012, I promise you. 2012.”
Posted in: Presidential campaign • Uncategorized • Barack Obama • concession • election night • John McCain | Post a Comment »
November 4th, 2008, 5:48 pm by Le Templar
REPUBLICANS AND OTHER SUPPORTERS OF JOHN MCCAIN WATCH THE FIRST ELECTION-NIGHT RETURNS IN A BALLROOM TUESDAY AT THE ARIZONA BILTMORE RESORT AND SPA. (Photo by Le Templar/Tribune)
A strong crowd already has turned out at the Arizona Biltmore resort to support John McCain in his bid for president. The Frank Lloyd Wright Ballroom has been transformed into election party central with giant television screens, a live band and four banks of television cameras and lights around the back of the room. Early cheers went up as CNN immediately called Kentucky for McCain and showed voting returns in other southern states with the Republican ahead. But only a trickle of actual votes have been counted, and everyone seems to be ready for a long night of waiting.
Posted in: Presidential campaign • Uncategorized • Arizona Biltmore • election victory party • John McCain | Post a Comment »
November 4th, 2008, 5:17 pm by Le Templar
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN AND CINDY MCCAIN STEP OFF OF HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN’S “STRAIGHT TALK AIR” TUESDAY AFTERNOON AT PHOENIX SKY HARBOR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. (Photo by Le Templar/Tribune)
John McCain ended his whirlwind visits to Colorado and New Mexico and landed back in Phoenix about 4:18 p.m. this afternoon. After the couple jumped into an SUV, another long caravan made its way to the Biltmore area. The McCains decided to spend a couple of hours at their condo before heading over to the Arizona Biltmore resort.
During the ride from the airport, Scott Horsley from National Public Radio told the media in my van that McCain’s plane (”Straight Talk Air”) had to abort its first attempted landing in Albuquerque, before going in safely so McCain could speak to some volunteers at the New Mexico campaign headquarters. Horsley, who has been covering the McCain campaign for weeks, said aborted landing isn’t that unusual even for a presidential candidate on Election Day. He guessed there was unexpected traffic on the airport tarmack, and McCain’s plane circled one while officials cleared the area.
Posted in: Presidential campaign • Albuquerque • John McCain • Straight Talk Air | Post a Comment »
November 4th, 2008, 1:26 pm by Le Templar
John McCain hasn’t been elected president, but he’s getting chief executive treatment today as he traveled around Phoenix to vote and then to the airport to jet off to a couple of campaign events in states next door. Security has been intense, with hundreds of local police closing off freeways to give McCain’s motorcade free passage. Motorcycle officers also have been blocking off every street, driveway or cart path along the route.
While President Bush has visited Phoenix several times during his administration, such sweeping traffic closures are rare enough that dozens of people came out of their homes and businesses this morning to stand on the sidewalk and just watch what’s going on. The photo below is of a group of health care personnel from a private surgery clinic near McCain’s central Phoenix condo at about 8:45 a.m. who came outside for at least 10 minutes to gander at all of the security and vehicles hanging around.
(Photo by Le Templar/Tribune)
Assuming the police will follow similar procedures this afternoon when McCain returns to Phoenix, expect huge traffic tie-ups during the rush hour around Sky Harbor International Airport and whatever freeways the motorcade travels.
Posted in: Presidential campaign • John McCain • Phoenix rush hour | Post a Comment »
November 4th, 2008, 1:03 pm by Le Templar
I’m here at the Arizona Biltmore resort press room, watching John McCain live on television as he speaks in Grand Junction, Colo. The days have been long, but he seems to be full of energy as he pushes to finish the day in fiesty style by giving yet another campaign stump speech to a boisterous crowd. It’s an interesting contrast with Barack Obama, who was shown about 30 minutes earlier playing indoor basketball.
McCain introduced all of the family that’s traveling with him, including his 95-year-old mother, Roberta. I saw Mrs. McCain in person about two hours earlier here at the Biltmore, as she came out from the hotel to find her place in the motorcade that would head to the airport (see the photo below). She walked and talked like a woman 30 years younger, and several people on McCain’s staff spoke in open admiration of her.
EVEN AT 95, ROBERTA MCCAIN, CENTER, IS SPENDING ELECTION TODAY WITH HER SON JOHN MCCAIN AS HE CAMPAIGNS IN COLORADO AND NEW MEXICO BEFORE RETURNING TO PHOENIX TO AWAIT VOTING RESULTS. (Photo by Le Templar/Tribune)
Posted in: Presidential campaign • John McCain • mom • Roberta McCain | Post a Comment »
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