Word: phoenixed
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...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...
...with Christian-right leaders has had different roots. They have spent the campaign looking for signs that McCain, who during his 2000 presidential run famously referred to some of them as "agents of intolerance," is one of them; instead he revealed that while he attends a Baptist church in Phoenix, he has not been baptized. But what about that moving POW guard story, you might ask? The one about the guard who drew a cross in the sand to share his Christian identity with McCain? That tale, it turns out, is actually a large part of the problem for Evangelical...
...most stringent cactus collection and preservation laws in the U.S. Landowners and developers in that state, for example, cannot move any cactus from its natural habitat without a license from the Department of Agriculture - and all legally moved or sold cactuses, even the tiny souvenir plants sold at the Phoenix airport, come with an official tag. So, conservationists have stepped in with an everybody-wins plan: the Tucson Cactus Society's internationally recognized rescue program seeks permission to harvest plants at development and mining sites, tag and sell them - the money raised goes into teaching grants aimed at raising cactus...
...Reagan, especially Reagan's efforts to rehabilitate Vietnam as a noble cause and the military as an honorable profession. McCain's first marriage had crumbled - he has admitted he was unfaithful - but he was remarried, to an Arizona beer heiress named Cindy Hensley, and the day in 1982 a Phoenix Congressman announced his retirement, she bought a house in his district. McCain was elected to the House as a Reagan Republican that year, but he already had his eye on the Senate. He easily moved up in 1986 after Barry Goldwater's retirement...