Word: gop
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...Sarah Palin's post-convention bounce dissipates, an ongoing conservative revolt in Arizona has been gaining steam. It probably won't cost McCain the state. But 26 years after the Republican was sent to Congress from Arizona, the schism within the state GOP points to lingering doubts that the right wing - both inside and outside Arizona - has about McCain's motives, methods and temperament. And in an unusually brutal state primary season that ended Sept. 2, suspicion about the Republican nominee led the conservative grass roots to air accusations of persecution and dirty politics...
...including most of the state's congressional delegation (though it unanimously voted Monday against the Wall Street bailout plan pushed by McCain) and many of the state's leading business interests, favor a dual approach combining enforcement and a path to citizenship. The rambunctious populist wing of the state GOP, led in part by state representative Russell Pearce from Mesa, favors a much tougher stance of deportations first and foremost...
...civil war going on in the Republican Party here," says David Berman, a professor emeritus with Arizona State University and a longtime observer of Arizona politics. "The division has severed off the business people from the social conservatives." Berman says that McCain's allies fought Pearce fiercely in the GOP primary for an open state senate seat, going so far as hiring hard-hitting political consultant Nathan Sproul to hammer away at Pearce. "They hired one of the sleaziest operators around," says Berman, "who used to only do this thing to Democrats...
...Coming to a new agreement, however, will require getting past some very bruised feelings. The GOP leadership was quick to point outraged fingers, citing Speaker Nancy Pelosi's closing speech before the vote as breaking the bipartisan spirit of the proceedings. "The Speaker had to give a partisan voice [sic] that poisoned our conference, caused a number of members we thought we could get to go south," Boehner ranted to reporters after the vote - as if partisan speeches had never before been heard on the House floor...
...McCain was almost as quick to throw blame around as his GOP colleagues, and his target was, no surprise, Barack Obama. "From the minute John McCain suspended his campaign and arrived in Washington to address this crisis, he was attacked by the Democratic leadership: Senators Obama and Reid, Speaker Pelosi and others," said Doug Holtz-Eakin, a McCain senior policy adviser. "Their partisan attacks were an effort to gain political advantage during a national economic crisis. By doing so, they put at risk the homes, livelihoods and savings of millions of American families...