Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007...6:56 am
Pearce to McCain: Resign!
State Rep. Russell Pearce, such a good friend of this blog, is asking Sen. John McCain to resign. McCain has missed numerous votes because of his campaign.
The Tucson Citizen editorialized about this back in March, and Talking Points Memo has pointed out that many of these votes that McCain has missed have been on the very issue he has been making so much hay about on the campaign trail: the war in Iraq. If he can make it to Washington to be on Meet the Press to talk about supporting the war, you’d think he could make it to Washington to vote to support it.
According to the Washington Post, McCain has missed 87 votes. That’s half of them. There was even a stretch in April where McCain managed to make it to no floor votes. The only one that has missed more votes is Tim Johnson, who has a pretty good excuse. No other Senator comes close to this record; the closest are Sam Brownback and Joe Biden, each missing a little more than a quarter of their votes. Maybe if they were front runners, they’d miss as many votes as McCain? Not so, the two other “top tier candidate” Senators, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, missed 2.3% and 7.5%.
Pearce and others have said that Barry Goldwater resigned his seat during his run for the presidency in 1964. This isn’t true. Goldwater’s Senate seat was up that year, and he chose not to run for both offices at the same time. Goldwater felt he had to do this since he was so vocal four years before when he complained that Lyndon Johnson was running for the Vice Presidency while campaigning for his Senate seat. Goldwater knew that Johnson would have had a field day if Goldwater was doing the same thing. As it was, Johnson had a field day that year anyway.
(Wait, does this mean that Arizona Conservatives like Pearce are looking to Goldwater as a role model again?)
I have a feeling that Pearce’s call has more to do with conservatives being dissatisfied with McCain, and this recent McCain supported immigration compromise gets Pearce’s blood boiling.
So, the state Republican chair is trashing Jon Kyl, and a key legislative leader is trashing John McCain. Golly, these Republicans are sooo divided and obviously incapable of governing.
12 Comments
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 am
Let’s say pigs fly for a moment and McCain actually resigns, who does Janet appoint to warm the seat for her until 2010?
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 am
Speaking on behalf of McCain, I would simply like to say:
“F*** you, Pearce! I know more about these matters than anyone else in this room!”
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:51 am
It is another election if McCain resigns.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Appleblossom, if McCain doesn’t resign until he is elected President, Governor Napolitano will have the opportunity to appoint his replacement, who will serve until 2010’s election. By statute, she must appoint a member of the same party as McCain.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:38 pm
I suspect that Pearce wants Mccain to resign so he can get Janet to appoint HIM to the vacant seat, (see my blog from last night: http://azw88.blogspot.com)
I bet Janet would almost be tempted to do it, too! She could well be rid of a thorn in her side, while mucking up the Republicans at the national level!
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:13 pm
My mistake then.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Since it’s a federal office, the Gov might not have to abide by state rules. Weird, huh.
Anyway, if she appointed anyone to serve out a term in the Senate, it’d probably be Barry Wong, if I remember correctly a Republican state senator way back when and the guy she appointed to the Corporation Commission after that one guy who’s name I can’t remember right now got appointed to FERC. If not him, then there are a number of other moderate Republicans in her administration or closely allied to it (but not elected to State government), like whoever she appointed to fill the State Treasurer’s slot for a couple weeks before the new guy got sworn in.
So don’t worry, it wouldn’t be anyone like Russell Pearce.
Also… who is that suprised looking soccer player, and why is his picture in this post?
May 24th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
azw88:
While that would be a brilliant stroke by the Governor, I know she is more professional than to appoint someone so idiotic as Pearce to the seat.
My suspicion is that she’d appoint a moderate Republican who was either too old, too unpopular or too obscure to successfully run for a full term in 2010 (say, former schools chief Jaime Molera) or who would be moderate enough to really give the state GOP fits (i.e. former state rep. Linda Binder.) A moderate from a legislative swing district (i.e. Bill Konopnicki) might be a possibility too, but he might be able to morph into a formidable opponent by 2010 so she probably wouldn’t.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
The soccer player is Russell “Rusty” Pierce of the Columbus Crew.
May 25th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Linda Binder! Yay! One of my favorite Republicans.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Eli, I was being sarcastic…. I know Janet wouldn’t give Pearce the such an honor. She would clearly pick a very moderate Republican, one who backed her in this last election. (plenty of them to chose from)
October 30th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
[…] Tucson Citizen has editorialized on it, and even fellow Republicans have jumped on him for it. As I’ve noted here before, the McCain has missed more votes than any other Senator except Tim Johnson, who has spent most of […]
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