STRIKE A BLOW FOR LIBERTY: Recall Senators McCain and Flake

By Lawrence Sellin

Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake are liberals representing a conservative state. By their statements and actions, they have proven that they are no longer worthy to be the U.S. Senators from Arizona.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who once described the mainstream media as his political base, has declared war on conservatives and the people of Arizona; reportedly leading a purge of the state’s GOP apparatus to pave the way for an easier reelection bid should he decide to run again in 2016.

In January 2013, Tea Party members and other conservatives managed to get John McCain censured by the Arizona Republican Party, for what they characterized as a liberal record that has been “disastrous and harmful” to the state and nation. It was not even close; the Republican Party of Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous, passed a resolution to censure the senator on a 1,150-to-351 vote. The state GOP party’s censure didn’t even require a recorded vote, it passed by acclamation, meaning by a voice vote.

Now, according to the left-leaning outlet Politico, McCain is getting his revenge.

In Arizona, Republican precinct committeemen elect local party chairmen, who, in turn, determine how state and local GOP funds are spent, which candidates are promoted in an election year, and which political issues are highlighted — all matters of central concern for McCain heading into 2016, when the threat of a primary looms.

Prior to Aug. 26, 2014, when the races for the party offices were held, the vast majority of the 3,925 precinct slots were filled by people McCain’s team considered opponents. Now, after an influx of candidates were recruited by the senator’s allies, around 40 percent of those offices — 1,531 to be exact — will be held by people McCain’s team regards as friendly. They will have the power to vote down hostile Republican chairmen in each of their respective localities.

After securing the support of conservative Sarah Palin, running a campaign as a conservative and gaining reelection in 2010, McCain immediately swerved to the left again, denigrating conservatives and Tea Partiers as “hobbits” and “wacko birds” while championing the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive amnesty legislation in the Senate.

McCain’s junior colleague, Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), a member of the Gang of Eight, is also a strong supporter of comprehensive amnesty for illegal aliens.

Flake has recommended that pro-amnesty 2016 Republican presidential candidates like former Florida Governor Jeb Bush ignore voters in Iowa and entirely skip the first-in-the-nation nominating caucuses to avoid having his pro-amnesty views scrutinized.

Flake, like all establishment Republicans, believes the only way the GOP can win the White House is by appealing to Hispanic voters through amnesty and a series of citizenship gateway bills reportedly scheduled for the next Congress. This is despite the fact that the New York Times and the Washington Post have both found that Republicans can win the White House in 2016 and beyond without supporting amnesty legislation.

Maybe for the Republican establishment, amnesty is little more than payback to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other wealthy donors at the expense of the American Middle Class.

Ordinary Americans can fight back against the permanent political ruling class and sidestep McCain’s selfish power grab.

Article VIII, Section1 of the Arizona Constitution allows the recall of U.S. Senators with a petition containing valid voter signatures of 25 percent of the last votes cast for the office, completed within 120 days.

America is now a de facto one-party state, where sclerotic big government Republicanism is indistinguishable from the policies promoted by the Democrats.

The 2016 election cycle will not be a contest between Republicans and Democrats, but a battle between the entrenched power of the bipartisan political establishment versus the rights and liberties of the American people; a conflict between those who want to adhere to the Constitution and the rule of law and the party leaders, who wish to continue the practices of political expediency and crony capitalism.

We already know which side McCain and Flake are on.

Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired colonel with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Sellin is the author of “Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution.” He receives email at lawrence.sellin@gmail.com.