Word: grass
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...move angered the grass roots even more, and they handed Symington a humiliating defeat. Haney won again in 2008, and estimates that after this primary, his faction still has the power in the state GOP structure. "We have a right to speak up if we feel our leaders are abandoning principles; we have a right to say no to our leaders. He's telling us to shut up," says Haney...
...Another conservative activist, who works in state government and worries that using his name will cost him his job, charges that McCain has gone out of his way to disrespect the conservative grass roots. Ahead of the 2004 Republican National Convention, he says, Senator McCain personally called several conservative delegates to try to rescind their invitations to the New York City gathering. The source says, "He wanted his own hand-picked people to go to the convention, to be the bestower," even though the grass-roots party members had done most of the grunt work in organizing and mobilizing...
...course, except for rare exceptions, it's not McCain or even his aides who are calling the shots in the war against the conservative grass roots. But after decades as a leader in the state, McCain has powerful allies and former staffers who run much of the GOP establishment, from the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce (which used to be run by his son Andy McCain) to the state house and senate, where moderate Republicans like outgoing senate president Tim Bee and Tucson representative Pete Hershberger have been able to push through much of their agenda by working with Democrats...
...McCain allies characterize this grass-roots wing of the party as slightly unhinged. Former Phoenix mayor Skip Rimsza likes to call the anti-McCain conservatives "CAVE" men (Citizens Against Virtually Everything). Magruder wrote me an e-mail touting his conservative credentials and support of tough border enforcement and insisting that "the hard-line crowd is irrational. They want to incite people to fear, and that is a dangerous thing to watch." Says ASU's Berman: "These guys are not easy to please. These guys were even after [conservative icon Barry] Goldwater for a while. They wanted to strip his name...
...potential for long-term political costs by distracting from, or eroding, the central McCain message. By comparing Obama to a vacuous Hollywood starlet, McCain found a coherent critique of Obama but relinquished his own ability to rise above the political maw. By choosing Sarah Palin, he lit a grass fire of GOP enthusiasm but risked undermining his ticket's claim of having greater experience and putting "country first." By attacking Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment, the campaign clearly established itself as willing to engage in frivolous, small-ball distractions, a disposition that served McCain poorly when he pivoted...