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Arizona Tea Party chooses none of the above

Posted by Richard on March 3, 2010

The four largest Tea Party organizations in Arizona agreed not to endorse a candidate in the Republican Senate primary, which pits incumbent Sen. John McCain against challengers J.D. Hayworth and Jim Deakin. Their reasons speak well of the Tea Party movement and put the lie to the “astroturf” nonsense (emphasis added):

“The Tea Party is a non-partisan, grassroots movement that stands for limited government, free markets, and fiscal responsibility. Both McCain and Hayworth’s records during their many years in Washington leave much to be desired on these issues,” said Robert Mayer, co-founder of the Tucson Tea Party. “It is their job to hold themselves up to these values and fight for our votes.”

Other tea party organizers across the state agreed that the local organizations should not endorse so early if at all.

“It is not appropriate to make an endorsement in this race at the drop of a hat, as some other groups are doing,” said Kelly Townsend, organizer of the Greater Phoenix Tea Party. “The movement must stand for ideas, and do everything possible to provide information to people so that they can make the best personal decisions.”

“We stand for principles and ideas, not for politicians or parties,” said Patrick Beck, organizer of the Mohave County Tea Party. “Our mission is to promote constitutional government and fiscal responsibility, and to inform people so that they can make their own decisions.”

McCain is anything but a champion of limited government and individual liberty. Although Hayworth, a former congressman, is described as “more conservative” than McCain, he’s not more pro-liberty. His primary focus has always been the authoritarian social-conservatism issues and a hard-core anti-immigrant agenda. I don’t know anything about Deakin, and no one seems terribly interested in or concerned with him, so I assume he’s not really a factor.

The Arizona Tea Party people seem to be principled, consistent advocates of liberty, and I think they’ve done the right thing by declaring essentially that “none of the above represent our values.” My hat’s off to them.

 

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2 Responses to “Arizona Tea Party chooses none of the above”

  1. David Bryant said

    “I don’t know anything about Deakin, …”

    Just out of curiosity, I took a look at the positions Mr. Deakin outlines on his campaign web site. He’s advocating limited government, tax reform, and a less interventionist foreign policy. He also characterizes himself as pro-life and pro-family (who isn’t?), and he sounds a bit bellicose on immigration.

    His web site is simple and clean. He could use a proofreader, though. Under the heading “Limit the Size and Scope of the Federal Government” I ran across this gem:

    “Every department should be scrutinized for constitutional authority and duplicity.”

    I think he meant to say redundancy. ”Hey, Jim. Don’t waste your time. I’ve already done the scrutiny bit, and you can rest assured that duplicity abounds throughout every department in Washington.”

  2. rgcombs said

    Looks like standard conservative stuff, and pretty well presented as you said. Actually, if you can believe what he says, I’d prefer him to Hayworth. But I have to wonder if the real purpose of his campaign is to split the conservative, anti-McCain vote.

    I do like the idea of making duplicity a priority, though! 🙂

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