The Fight for Arizona
Written by Sam on September 12th, 2006The House race in Arizona for a seat left open by retiring moderate GOP Rep. Jim Kolbe (news, bio, voting record) also has drawn national money and interest. Eleven major-party candidates for the seat that stretches from Tucson to the Mexican border were entered in the party primaries.
National GOP leaders angered Republican candidates when they jumped into the race to support state Rep. Steve Huffman, a moderate who in a recent poll was trailing a former state lawmaker, Randy Graf.
Party officials have expressed concerns Graf may be too conservative to win the seat in November.
I know very well what it is like to have the national party interfere with local elections. See Toomey vs. Specter, 2004. Like they did in Pennsylvania two years ago, they are trying to do what they can to scare voters into thinking they need a moderate (which is code word for Democrat Lite) in order to win the seat rather than select a truly principled Republican. I can almost understand that logic in Rhode Island, but in a fairly right wing state like Arizona it’s just bunk.
Good luck to Randy Graf today. Tom Tancredo is behind him and that is all I need to know.
12
PM
The only problem with Randy Graf is that he’s a one issue candidate. When I worked for Jim Kolbe a few years back, we had a one issue candidate running against us in the primary. They didn’t get any where with the voters.
Randy Graf may indeed win the primary tonight, but knowing the voters of District 8 like I do, I would have to join the RNC and Congressman Jim Kolbe in thinking that Graf can’t win the general in November. He is already polling down and he hasn’t even won the primary yet. That’s not good for a District that has been held by a Republican the last 20+ years.
13
AM
I haven’t been to AZ in years, but Graf has 10 issues listed on his campaign website Randy on the Issues
* Securing our Border* Supporting our Troops in the War on Terror
* Controlling Wasteful Spending and Cutting Taxes
* Securing Benefits for our Veterans
* Education
* 2nd Amendment
* Preserving Traditional Marriage
* Protecting the Right to Life
* United States defense of Israel
* Health Care
Steve
Hawthorne, CA