For years, Rob Haney wore a campaign-style button that makes his thoughts about John McCain crystal clear. Its design was simple: It included the words "McCain 2008" with a no-smoking-style slash through it.
But Haney has retired the button in favor of supporting the presidential campaign of the man he told The Washington Post in February was "not a conservative at all."
McCain's troubles with some Arizona Republicans have been highly publicized. But many of the leaders who criticized, castigated and even censured him are now supporting his bid for president.
But even as the most conservative factions of the party grudgingly fall in line behind McCain, a recent poll shows he might be losing the battle over undecided voters in his home state (See related story at http://www.azcapitoltimes.com/story.cfm≠id=9577). McCain maintains a 7-point lead, according to the Cronkite/Eight poll, but fewer voters were undecided than in past polls and Democrat Barack Obama had inched three points closer to McCain than he was only a month ago.
McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate patched some of the tattered relationships, but for some of the more entrenched grassroots conservatives in Arizona, the choice came down to the unpalatable vs. the unconscionable – McCain or Obama.
The root of discontent
Arizona's senior senator first ran afoul of the more conservative grassroots element of the state's Republican Party several times during his tenure in Washington.
In 2002, he played a key role in reforming campaign finance laws by limiting the amount of certain campaign contributions, but was lambasted by critics who said the McCain-Feingold legislation infringed on the First Amendment rights of Americans by restricting their ability to voice opinions about candidates.
Then, in 2004, McCain campaigned against Proposition 200 in his home state. The ballot measure, which was later approved by voters, sought to prevent illegal immigrants from voting and receiving welfare benefits and mandated state agencies to report illegal immigrants to the federal government.
In 2005, he partnered with Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy on a bill that would have expanded the use of guest-worker visas. In each of the next two years, he and Kennedy co-sponsored comprehensive immigration reform bills that would have provided a legal status and a "path to citizenship" for the 12 million or so illegal immigrants in the United States.
Back home, the McCain-Kennedy bills stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble among Republicans. Illegal immigration was the most contentious issue in Arizona and putting an end to it had quickly become a top priority for many Republicans.
McCain's solution was derided as "amnesty" for those who broke the law in coming here and his strident support for the measure, and a more expansive bill in 2007, earned him the contempt of those who viewed illegal immigration as a core component of the Republican platform.
For much of that time, Haney was the driving force behind the organized anti-McCain effort in the state. The chairman of Legislative District 11, McCain's home district, Haney has had McCain in his crosshairs for as long as there has been derision among the grassroots over his activities in the Senate.
In 2005, Haney introduced a resolution censuring McCain "for undermining the conservative mandate of the 2004 election, and state that we condemn John McCain's betrayal of trust Republican voters placed in him." The resolution was overwhelmingly adopted by the Maricopa County Republican Party's executive committee.
Two days after this year's presidential preference primary election, Haney pushed for the county party's executive committee to again stand in opposition to McCain. Though the resolution, which would have publicly said the county party did not support McCain's candidacy, was not approved, the call for such a public statement by party leaders two days after Arizona voters supported McCain in the election reinforced how diametrically opposed McCain was to Haney and other grassroots conservatives.
But Haney now supports McCain. He said the stark contrasts between McCain and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, drove his decision.
"It isn't that we don't have the same differences with McCain, it's just that when you compare McCain to Obama, you have to make the best decision of the two," he said.
That may be the impetus for others dissatisfied with McCain in prior years falling in line behind his candidacy now, said Republican political consultant Stan Barnes.
"There is clarity on the eve of the general election," he said. "There is either John McCain or Barack Obama. That is it. There is unifying energy in that clarity."
Sean McCaffrey, executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, said most Republicans have a sense of "complete, horrible abject horror about what Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress might do to America."
In contrast, he said McCain has bolstered his conservative stances since he began campaigning for president.
"His conservative credentials are about as good as anybody's right now," McCaffrey said. "Take away any perceived sins and you've got a great candidate."
State Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen, a longtime ally of Haney and a critic of McCain, said the Republican nominee has sufficiently changed his stance on immigration reform to quell much of the unrest felt among the party's grassroots workers. Rather than focus on guest-worker programs or a path to citizenship – two major components of the McCain-Kennedy immigration legislation – he is now placing an emphasis on securing the borders above all else, Pullen said.
And beyond that, McCain is in line with conservatives on other important issues, such as tax policy and the selection of Supreme Court justices, he said.
"It kind of comes down to, if you agree with the guy 80 percent of the time on stuff, then that's about as good as you can expect," Pullen said. "If I wanted someone I agreed with 100 percent of the time to be president, I'd have run for president myself."
That sentiment is shared by virtually every party leader, said Alberto Gutier, the sergeant-at-arms for the state Republican Party.
"Ninety-nine percent of precinct committeemen are 100 percent behind John McCain," he said.
The one percent
Phil Corbell is among that outlying 1 percent. A vice-chairman of the Legislative District 4 Republican Party, Corbell isn't jumping on the McCain campaign bandwagon. McCain, he said, doesn't adequately represent the values of the Republican Party.
Corbell also pointed out that McCain hasn't mentioned immigration – the most important issue for Arizonans – since the convention last month, and his record is definitively contrary to the U.S. Constitution.
As soon as he gets his early ballot, Corbell said he would cast a vote for one of the third-party candidates, though he declined to say who would receive his vote.
"There's a couple I agree with," he said.
Whichever candidate Corebell does vote for, he said it would be a person who "represents Republican values better than the Republican candidate."
"I'm not a Republican because of the candidate," he said. "I'm a Republican because of the party platform."
And while Corbell touts various media reports that say 2008 could be the year a thi
rd-party candidate breaks through because of dissatisfaction within both parties about the nominees, Barnes said the reality is that Corbell and others in the party who are opposing McCain represent "the utter fringe element (of) Republican activists" and will have no impact.
"They are all by themselves," Barnes said. "They don't have any impact on people…and they won't change the outcome in any measurable way."
One of McCain's longtime allies said the important thing is that his presidential bid has finally united a Republican Party that had been deeply fractured in recent years.
"It's getting us back into normal operations," said Jerry Brooks, the chairman of the Legislative District 21 Republican Party, who was a staffer on McCain's first congressional campaign. "We have our candidate and we're supporting him. We're pulling our party back together, I hope."
Barnes, who has been critical of the warring factions within the party, said a McCain victory in November could help unify Arizona Republicans "for a very long time" and set the party on the road to recovery.
"I find deep satisfaction in it. It gives me extreme hope for the future of my Republican Party," he said.