By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — A veteran Arizona conservative Republican activist, Rob Haney, launched an effort to defeat U.S. GOP Sen. John McCain in the November election, even though liberal Democratic Senate candidate Ann Kirkpatrick would replace him.
Among various items, Haney points to the powerful McCain’s lack of significant conservative legislation despite decades in Washington, his continuing hostility to conservatives, and the fact that when McCain moved to the Grand Canyon State, he planned to run as a Democrat but was told he couldn’t win the congressional district he wanted with that party.
Haney, a supporter of GOP nominee Donald Trump for president, also notes McCain’s inconstancy toward Trump.
After being standoffish toward the billionaire, McCain successfully sought Trump’s endorsement for Arizona’s August primary election, where McCain triumphed. But the Arizona senator then withdrew his own endorsement of Trump in October after an old tape of lewd comments by Trump surfaced, for which the New Yorker apologized.
Some national news reports have noted that various GOP candidates repudiating Trump are weakening themselves and suffering backlash from their voters.
Haney, a Catholic, Pennsylvania native and graduate of Penn State, is an Air Force veteran. Both he and his wife, Marne, attained the rank of captain in that military branch. He went on to work as a manager at IBM.
Becoming politically active in Arizona, Haney was GOP chairman of state legislative district 11, McCain’s own district, for two two-year terms. After McCain’s forces ousted him when he ran for a third term, Haney immediately turned around and was elected by large margins to two two-year terms as Maricopa County GOP chairman before he retired from active political candidacy.
Maricopa is Arizona’s most populous county by far, with a population currently exceeding four million. Phoenix is the county seat.
Haney has produced a series of videos viewable at YouTube about his current Never McCain campaign. Following is an October 15 Wanderer email interview with Haney, edited for style and length.
Q. What made you decide to undertake this effort to remove John McCain by voting for a liberal, pro-abortion Democrat instead?
A. It is my opinion that no one has done more damage to the United States Republic or the Republican Party than John McCain. He and his Republicans in Name Only (RINO) allies have wreaked liberal-policy havoc and division in the party for two decades and blamed conservatives for the dissension.
When these same McCain operatives spent more than a year attacking Trump prior to the primary and then continued the attack with their Never Trump campaign after the primary, I had had enough of their deceit. I believed it was an imperative that a Never McCain campaign be launched in a counterattack.
McCain’s advocacy for amnesty and open borders is leading to the demise of the party and country through the importation of illegal aliens and Muslim refugees who become Democrat voters. The amnesty and open-borders issue is the number one pro-life issue.
These Democrat voters will reverse any small pro-life victories we have managed to obtain by legislation. They will vote for pro-abortion Democrats who will appoint Democrat political operatives as federal judges. The process is well under way, with a large assist from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
I have listed 19 reasons why McCain is not pro-life in my Never McCain video briefings 2 and 3, which are on YouTube and Facebook. It is disingenuous to say I would be voting for a liberal pro-abortion Democrat when I have proven, beyond a reasonable doubt in my videos, that McCain has done more damage to the pro-life cause than any Democrat could even dream about. McCain’s specialty is deceit. You must look at what he has done, not what he says. Have you ever seen him at a pro-life march?
McCain is a liberal Democrat cloaked in a Republican cape. I can think of no piece of major conservative legislation that McCain has sponsored or championed. There are many pieces of far-left liberal legislation that McCain has championed or co-sponsored with extreme left-wing liberal senators. I believe it would be very beneficial for the country if we replaced the very powerful, liberal McCain with a considerably less powerful Democrat, Kirkpatrick.
I knew that well-informed Republicans who believe in the U.S. Constitution and the Republican platform detested McCain for his deceit and dishonesty and for his disdain for their beliefs. Instead, he favored the elite power- and money-brokers of the party. I also saw that the mere mention of McCain’s name at Republican events brought on a thunderous chorus of boos.
This led me to believe that if I could convince 10 percent of the Republicans who had voted for McCain in the last election to vote for Kirkpatrick, McCain could be defeated because the 10 percent would turn to 20 percent. Not only would McCain lose a vote from a single voter, but Kirkpatrick would gain a vote from that same voter.
Q. How well has your effort been received by Republicans? Has the support for it by the Seeing Red AZ conservative blog been helpful?
A. The effort has been generally well received by those who are aware of it. Never McCain could use more publicity because the MSM won’t mention the campaign for fear it will be too well received, and they want the amnesty advocate McCain to win. There also is the caveat that I am only hearing from supporters.
I am well aware that although there is a vast number of people who detest McCain, they just can’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat, and they fear losing the Senate majority. Blogs such as Seeing Red AZ and MCRC (Maricopa County Republican Committee) Briefs have been very helpful in getting the word out.
Q. Can’t people say that Republicans already had their chance to remove McCain in the GOP primary, but they lost? Do you think that primary-election result was an honest vote count?
A. I knew that the Republican establishment forces would not allow one of their own to be defeated in the primary election. They favored McCain with publicity, money, and three candidates running against him to split the anti-McCain vote. The primary is rigged. It is always fixed for the liberal incumbent.
It should be self-evident from the Trump campaign to what lengths the Republican elites will go to win primaries. The only way to overcome a rigged primary for McCain is to vote for Kirkpatrick in the general election. There is so much voter fraud now that it is more likely there was fraud than that there wasn’t fraud. But again, the system is rigged against preventing or detecting it by a corrupt Department of Justice and judiciary.
Q. Are you not being similar to Republicans saying that at the presidential level, they refuse to vote for Donald Trump, or even actually vote for Hillary Clinton?
A. Well, hell yes. It is a counterattack, as I described in question one. In addition, there is a huge difference between electing a president and a senator. Electing Hillary is an absolute guarantee of the destruction of our republic, and this is what the Republican betrayers are advocating. Because of the seniority of McCain, electing Kirkpatrick is actually far less damaging than re-electing McCain. McCain and Kirkpatrick will give us similar votes. Trump and Hillary is a life-and-death issue for the republic.
Q. After both Arizona county and state committeemen censured McCain for being untrue to the GOP platform, would you say he gave any evidence of repenting or learning his lesson?
A. McCain has never repented for his sins of betrayal nor has he confessed them. He always doubles down with vengeance on those who object to his betrayals and devotes large resources of money and personnel to eliminate all opposition.
Q. How did Arizona grassroots Republicans react when McCain responded by launching his effort to remove committeemen who opposed him? How much out-of-state money did he raise for this effort, and how successful was the effort?
A. Grassroots Republicans have been very vocal about the vengeance of McCain’s operatives. But they do not have his paid staff and financial resources to battle his assaults.
Politico, in December 2014, reported that Arizona Grassroots PAC, which handles the attacks to rid the Arizona GOP of conservative precinct committeemen, raised $300,000 from out-of-state contributors. In 2007, the PAC raised over $20,000 from in-state lobbyists to defeat conservatives in McCain’s own legislative district. McCain recruited a former Arizona governor, Fife Symington, to run for a lowly district chairman position.
But even with that effort, McCain lost. And so he doubled down in his purge of conservatives. Over the last 10 years, the McCain vengeance has been very successful. If Arizona does not become a blue state this year, it will be blue next election. McCain will have eliminated the conservatives from the party, and they will not be voting for RINOs in future elections. That game has been played out.
Q. Please state your explanation that a novice Sen. Kirkpatrick is less dangerous than a re-elected McCain.
A. McCain came to Arizona in 1982 to run for Congress as a Democrat. The Republican establishment convinced him that he could not win in Republican-dominated Mesa (Ariz.) as a Democrat. McCain has been a Democrat cloak in a Republican cape ever since, and his record in Congress has reflected his political ideology.
He has not sponsored a major piece of conservative legislation, but he has an extensive record of liberal legislation he has spearheaded through the Senate with like-minded far-left liberal comrades.
McCain has worked from within the Republican Senate Caucus to attack from the rear and ferment disunity. I would rather face a weak, recognizable foe, Kirkpatrick, from the front of the battle line than be attacked from the rear by a betrayer, McCain.
A newly elected Kirkpatrick would not carry the seniority or influential clout with which to pass liberal legislation that a re-elected McCain would carry….Kirkpatrick would be a junior player in the Democrat Caucus, with no seniority. She could not do the damage that McCain has demonstrated repeatedly that he will do.
Q. But what if McCain losing the seat means the crucial loss of the GOP Senate majority, and a new Supreme Court nomination is controlled by a Democrat-majority Senate?
A. This is the same trite scare tactic the RINOs use every election to say it just isn’t the right time to address our traitors. We have a majority in the Senate now, 54 to 46. With the revulsion that the Republican base feels for the Senate as well as the House, we could lose the majority because of a grassroots revolt.
We gave the Republican establishment the majorities in the House and the Senate which they claimed they needed to stop the Obama agenda. They failed utterly, miserably, shamefully. Obama literally got everything he wanted from a Republican majority House and Senate.
The same RINOs are now attacking the Republican presidential candidate, Trump. They are saying they would rather have Hillary in the White House and end the Republic of the United States. The Republicans also approved the vast majority of the far-left federal court nominees of Obama.
Five RINOs voted to confirm far-left Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, and nine RINOs voted to confirm far-left nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Are we now to believe the loss of the Senate majority will make a difference in the ideological results of the votes? I believe the record indicates otherwise.
Finally, John McCain’s proudest achievement was his Campaign Finance Reform Act. It was widely recognized by conservatives as an attack on the First and Second Amendments and used to falsely attack the Right-to-Life organization of Wisconsin. McCain submitted a friend-of-the-court brief when RtL had to take their case to the Supreme Court to finally get justice and have McCain slapped down.
I do not believe McCain would look favorably upon a conservative Supreme Court nominee who might strike down his life’s proudest-moment piece of legislation as unconstitutional.
Q. Please briefly mention the effort by Americans for Legal Immigration (alipac.us) to remove GOP incumbents this November.
A. The Never McCain campaign has recently garnered support from an unexpected source, the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC. ALIPAC is a national organization founded on 9/11 of 2004 in honor of the victims of 9/11. They lobby to defeat amnesty bills and state legislation that would have provided licenses and in-state tuition for illegal aliens.
World Net Daily is reporting that for the first time in its history, ALIPAC has launched an effort to elect Democrats to Congress to replace RINOs. Citing their support for illegal immigration and the importation of Muslim refugees, ALIPAC has launched a campaign to defeat McCain and the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. We welcome its support and look forward to seeing its ads.
Political Expediency
Q. How do you view Barack Obama’s recent Department of Justice decision to prosecute Sheriff Joe Arpaio for criminal contempt? Is this part of the overall establishment campaign to destroy enforcement of immigration laws?
A. With the cooperation of RINOs, Obama has instituted a well-entrenched, politicized federal judiciary and DOJ. Under Obama’s appointees, decisions are not based upon an unbiased interpretation of the law, but rather upon political expediency based on liberal ideology. Any law-enforcement officer who follows the law, especially when it comes to the illegal-alien invasion, will be harassed and prosecuted by Obama’s judiciary and DOJ.
That is what has happened to Sheriff Arpaio.
Q. How can federal Judge Murray Snow’s deeply biased assault against Arpaio, so as to render the sheriff helpless at enforcing immigration law, be tolerated in a just legal system?
A. The legal system is not just. It has an overwhelming liberal bias in favor of illegal immigration, the homosexual agenda, abortion, and is opposed to the Judeo-Christian heritage of America.
Q. How does McCain (and also his compadre U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake) fit into this campaign to have an open-borders Arizona and United States? How could two U.S. senators insist on harming their very own state with this unauthorized invasion?
A. Power and money. They see, and so far they have judged it correctly, that their power rests with communication channels and the organized power structure. They have the mainstream media, the illegal-alien lobby, the universities, the fast-food and construction industries, the chambers of commerce organizations and PACs funding and supporting them.
McCain and Flake can overwhelm the conservative base with money and power. They apparently have no core values that are based upon the Constitution, faith, and morals. John Adams warned us that without an educated populace with faith and morals, the republic could not survive. We are now at that point.
Q. Where can people read more about your effort online? How successful do you think it will be?
A. You can view the effort on YouTube and Facebook under a search for Never McCain. You can also access information about the effort at the blog sites Seeing Red AZ and MCRC Briefs.
Successful? My wife, Marne, frequently quotes to me from St. Teresa of Calcutta, “We are called upon not to be successful but to be faithful.” I acknowledge that my hands and mind are at the Lord’s service. I pray that the Lord opens my eyes to see the truth.
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