Recently, a supporter of Alex Meluskey stepped into an email that was sent from Gila County Republican Committee Chairman Gary Morris to the GCRC Precinct Committeemen announcing an upcoming PC meeting. This Alex Meluskey Supporter isn’t one of our PC’s. He took issue with an item that Chairman Morris had included in his email, which was a comment from Yavapai GOP Activist Jim Dutton which appeared in the 7/2/2016 MCRC News Briefs.
Mr. Dutton wrote: "Time to Take One for the Team – I wish to thank all of the Senatorial candidates for their willingness to run against John McCain. All of you have stressed the importance of retiring McCain for the good of Arizona and its citizens. It’s time now for each of you to evaluate the best course of action in order to accomplish the goal of removing McCain. You must put your egos aside and allow your patriotism and professed desire to serve your State and Country to be your guide. Everyone knows that multiple candidates in the primary race will only help John McCain. Therefore, we the people beseech Alex Meluskey, Scott McBean and Clair Van Steenwyck to take the high road and withdraw from this race today. The writing is on the wall guys and it’s time to face reality. Play the men for your people and unite behind the only candidate who has proven to be a challenger to John McCain – Kelli Ward. How do you want to be remembered? As a spoiler who helped get McCain elected or as a true patriot whose self-sacrifice and patriotism were clearly demonstrated for all of Arizona to see? Please, for all of Arizona! Take one for the Team."
The Supporter fired back at all the PC’s as follows:
"WHY doesn’t WARD DROP OUT and let somebody with a CONSERVATIVE VOTING RECORD run??WE THE PEOPLE HAVENT EVER AND WILL NOT VOTE FOR LIBERALS RUNNING ASD CONSERVATIVES.Check her voting record then Vote for Alex Meluskey for #AZSEN2016 #DUMPWARDINAZ."
Several of our PC’s nicely, but firmly, responded to the Supporter, with comments favorable to Mr. Dutton’s MCRC post.
Since I’m a GCRC PC, I’m publishing my response to the Meluskey Supporter, which follows:
As Chairman Morris reminded all of us in his PC Meeting Notification, this group, the Gila County Republican Committee precinct committeemen, has censured John McCain twice. Once in 2014, and again in May 2016. Several counties throughout Arizona have censured John McCain, as did the Arizona State Committeemen, for his “disastrous record.”
As a group, we are not “friends” of John McCain.
You insinuate that Alex Meluskey has a "CONSERVATIVE VOTING RECORD." He’s never held office. Where do we check it? It’s not HERE. Because he’s never held office, he’s never been rated by organizations that judge a candidate on his/her votes. Nothing HERE.
You state "WE THE PEOPLE HAVENT (sic) EVER AND WILL NOT VOTE FOR LIBERALS RUNNING ASD (sic) CONSERVATIVES. Check her voting record."
I have checked Dr. Ward’s voting record, and this is what I know.
I’ve watched Arizona Senator Kelli Ward closely during the last 2 legislative sessions. I haven’t always agreed with her on every stand, but to call her a “LIBERAL" is an outrage! The “liberal” Republican senators include Jeff Dial, Adam Driggs, Steve Pierce, Bob Worsley, and some others who delight in teaming up with Democrats to defeat conservative Republicans. Medicaid expansion and Common Core are two odious examples.
Dr. Kelli Ward was elected in 2012 and took office in January 2013. Her votes cover 2013, 2014, and 2015, until she resigned in December to take on "Goliath" John McCain and his bottomless pit of money.
Dr. Ward’s record is among the most conservative in the legislature. Based on her voting record, she consistently was rated 100% by the Center for Arizona Policy for her Pro-Life votes. Cathi Herrod, president of CAP, stated, "For the record, Kelli Ward had a 100% Pro-Life voting record. Never wavered." Dr. Ward was rated 0% by Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL).
She has received high scores from the American Conservative Union, Arizona Small Business Association, the National Federation of Independent Business, Arizona Republican Assembly, and Americans for Prosperity-Arizona. (She dipped to 76% in 2014 but wasn’t alone. The top scorer received an 84%. Dr. Ward’s 2015 cumulative score was 83% “Champion of the Taxpayer.”)
She has top scores from the Arizona Citizens Defense League and the NRA. She, not John McCain, has received an endorsement from Gun Owners of America.
See Project Vote Smart and Ballotpedia.
She voted NO to the infamous Medicaid expansion and was part of the lawsuit to try to stop it from being implemented.
She’s voted steadfastly against the wretched nationalized Common Core standards* and the “state mandated” assessments that go with them*. As the Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, she refused to consider Gov. Ducey’s pro-Common Core appointee to the State Board: Tim Carter.
She pushed back against the NSA’s warrantless surveillance programs as a Primary sponsor of SB1156.
See a record of Kelli Ward’s Key Votes.
Dr. Kelli Ward’s many endorsements include two from famous conservative icons. Dr. Ron Paul wrote to Dr. Ward, stating:
“As a physician, you have seen first-hand how ObamaCare has reduced our liberties in just a few short years. During your time as state senator, you have fought to reduce the size of government and restore the liberties of Arizonans. We need to elect more people into the U.S. Senate to stand alongside my son, Rand Paul. Because of your dedication to smaller government and restoring more of our personal liberties, I am proud to endorse your campaign for the U.S. Senate.”
Phyllis Schlafly, a leading force in the "pro family movement" since 1972 as Founder and CEO of the Eagle Forum, wrote:
"I wholeheartedly endorse Dr. Kelli Ward for U.S. Senator from Arizona.”
In January 2016, Mr. Meluskey promised "not to play spoiler." He went on to say that, if he wasn’t in a strong first or second place, "You will not see me with my name for people to vote for on August 30…..I will not do that to the people of Arizona!"
He had made a similar promise in December 2015.
As of this writing, he hasn’t withdrawn from the race, and early ballots will soon be mailed. According to two well publicized polls, Mr. Meluskey is hardly a "strong first or second."
Last August 2015, Real Clear Politics published a Gravis Marketing poll that indicated Kelli Ward at 45% and John McCain at 36%. Granted, Mr. Meluskey’s name didn’t appear in the poll. Why would it? He had zero name identity.
By mid-May 2016, an article titled McCain is in deep trouble in the GOP Primary, showed Mr. Meluskey with 4% of the vote. As stated in the article, “McCain is benefiting from having multiple opponents…When you narrow the field down to just a choice between McCain and Ward, it’s a tie at 41%. Ward is polling this competitively at this point despite having only 41% name recognition.”
Mr. Meluskey’s supporters claim the polls are biased and wrong! According to Lynne Breyer, publisher of Arizona Freedom Alliance and a strong supporter of Meluskey, "I believe Dutton’s position is based on incorrect polling showing Ward to be neck and neck with McCain. In reality, internal polling that was conducted with no bias in the design of the polls show Ward barely ahead of Alex Meluskey and trending downward.” See 7/3/2016 MCRC Briefs.
Ms. Breyer has stated that this internal poll is "private." How convenient for Mr. Meluskey.
Polls aside, there’s an even stronger indicator of who’s neck and neck with McCain. A massive amount of money is being spent by McCain supporters to smear Kelli Ward, not Alex Meluskey. Why? Because, as stated by Public Policy Polling, “McCain is benefiting from having multiple opponents." Every vote that goes to Meluskey and others who are polling single digits benefits McCain.
Here’s a brief overview of the smears against Kelli Ward that have been launched by the McCain Machine. This is how he "campaigns."
1. McCain’s “dark money” has been running scurrilous ads against Ward nonstop, on radio, tv, through the mail, and Facebook. Pat O’Malley and I co-authored an expose article, McCain-Assisting PAC Misleads Voters about Conservative Opponent Kelli Ward, about these ads paid for by Grassroots Action PAC. As of a few months ago, this group had spent about $825,000 during the 2016 election cycle. They’ve spent $45,049 to support John McCain and $781,828 opposing Kelli Ward. So, how did this organization (which shares the same address as the John McCain campaign) get started? "In the days after the state party’s rebuke, a group of top McCain political hands, including Jon Seaton and Christian Ferry — who worked for McCain in his 2008 campaign and have remained with him since — hatched a plan to form a super PAC that would spend money to elect a more friendly slate of precinct committeemen. The largest checks came from Gregory Maffei, a Colorado businessman, and Gregory Wendt, a San Francisco-based financial adviser, both longtime McCain donors." See McCain’s Big Purge
2. “Friends of John McCain” has also been running horrible, scurrilous ads on popular conservative websites, such as Breitbart. Breitbart obviously doesn’t want to reject tons of advertising dollars paid for by McCain’s “Friends.” Breitbart has, however, published several articles favorable to Dr. Ward.
3. “Friends of John McCain” has created a website called WhatKelliSays, picking apart and highlighting and distorting anything and everything she has ever said, all of it out of context and all of it opposite of the Truth.
As a result of all these relentless, nasty ads, John McCain is losing longtime supporters. One former McCain supporter called the ads “blatantly false character assassinations. It is worse than sad that you feel you must resort to these desperate tactics to win re-election. We know that politics are dirty, but for an honored military officer to stoop this low is worse than reprehensible.” Lee Cornelison, Colonel, US Army (ret)
As very well stated by Jim Dutton: "How do you want to be remembered? As a spoiler who helped get McCain elected or as a true patriot whose self-sacrifice and patriotism were clearly demonstrated for all of Arizona to see? Please, for all of Arizona! Take one for the Team."
See Also:
Dr. Kelli Ward for U.S. Senate.
*See below for Dr. Ward’s multiple attempts to rid the schools of the Common Core Standards and state-mandated assessments. These bills were defeated by Democrats as well as by (primarily) RINO Senators Dial, Driggs, Pierce, and Worsley.
HB2246 Statewide assessments; Parental opt out Permits a parent, on behalf of the student, to opt-out of the statewide student assessment system.
HB2190 Common Core; Replacement. Prohibits the use of Common Core standards and establishes a process for the State Board of Education (SBE) to redevelop statewide academic standards and assessments.
SB1305 Continuous Improvement Academic Standards Committee. Establishes the Arizona Continuous Improvement Academic Standards Committee (Committee).
SB1458 Schools; Academic Standards; Tests. Restructures Arizona’s K-12 education system by requiring school districts and charter schools to adopt, prescribe and implement academic standards, assessments, competency requirements and other K-12 functions.
SB1396. Schools; Competency Requirements; Assessments. Requires Arizona to withdraw from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), prohibits the adoption of the PARCC assessment and establishes a moratorium on high school graduation tests for the next three School Years (SY).
SB1310. Schools; Common Core; Prohibition. Prohibits the State Board of Education (SBE) from implementing the Common Core Standards, requires Arizona to withdraw from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and makes other changes regarding educational standards and assessments.
McCain-Assisting PAC Misleads Voters about Conservative Opponent Kelli Ward
McCain challenger Kelli Ward courts votes at Trump rally