Fifty-nine percent. That's the lead in Arizona for wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III, according to the Rasmussen poll. It's perhaps all you need to know about today's Arizona, already a burden on federal taxpayers and likely to become a disastrous drag on the nation in the decades ahead.
A casual viewer might think this is a tremendous vote of confidence for McCain, as "these are the voters who know him best." In fact, they are the voters who likely know him least — with some exceptions I'll get to in a moment. McCain has rarely been a presence in his "home state." He rarely rises from his self-anointed position of national leadership to address an issue facing Arizona, unless it is to thunder "no!" As Arizona has changed and urbanized, as its economy has become more backward and it has skidded along on the bottom of almost every scale of social well-being, as its needs have ballooned — McCain has done nothing.
For most of these 59 percent, McCain is a television and talk-radio presence. They are the right-wing faithful and "low information voters" who came to Arizona to escape "socialism" — i.e., any obligations to society. Because of the sacrifices of real Arizonans and their leaders who came before McCain — and vast amounts of federal money ("socialism"), they get to unthinkingly live in an air-conditioned, water-abundant (or so it seems), wide-freeway, flood controlled "resort." It would not exist if earlier Arizonans had followed the prescriptions of McCain and the rest of the Republican delegation — but this is deeper thinking than we can expect. In this transient place, most know nothing of its history or critical issues.
It is a fascinating phenomenon. Modern Arizona is a creation of the federal government, from the Army that subdued the indigenous tribes and government subsidies for railroads to the Central Arizona Project. Metro Phoenix was created as the closest thing to a real, large-scale socialist experiment as we've seen in America. The Newlands Act of 1902 began the process that built the Salt River Project, taming the river with dams. The Valley was laid out in uniform plots that would draw people from the "teeming cities of the East" to become Jeffersonian farmers in Arizona, on reclaimed land. All of this was top-down from Washington.
Since then, Arizona's never stopped sucking at the federal teet — it is a net taker. The sprawl that became the economy was similarly subsidized, by the CAP, by federal deregulation, by freeways, willful importation of cheap, illegal workers, etc. The economy floats on the Social Security checks of retirees — a program all the leading lights of conservatism denounced and McCain claims he would privatize. The (sadly diminishing) grand landscape that supports the tourism economy depends on federal preservation. Arizona developers have gotten rich off of quiet federal land swaps engineered by the congressional delegation.
And yet most Arizonans think themselves rugged individualists, bootstrappers and — with 4 million people crammed into the once verdant Salt River Valley — living in splendid isolation with no mutual obligations or duty to the common good. No wonder they will vote for McCain.
Other forces are at work, as well. The "business leadership," such as it is, backs McCain because they are terrified of his vindictive temperament. Outside the Real Estate Industrial Complex, there are few real business interests in this outpost of low-wage service jobs and back offices that give a damn anyway, or have the guts and vision to see the state's challenges. Or the power to challenge the Republican establishment. Privately, many establishment Arizonans think McCain is a lunatic.
The Republican Party itself years ago was hijacked by the extremists that have taken over the GOP around the country. Barry Goldwater and Paul Fannin couldn't win the primary for dogcatcher in today's Arizona Republican Party. The formula for exploiting social issues and grievances reliably brings the Mormons and suburban mega-churchers, the low-wage Anglos who have grievances, all skillfully exploited by the right-wing propaganda machine. They believe government is the problem, don't you see — that's why their wages have fallen under George W. Bush. And all the retirees, who moved to Arizona "to be left alone," and left their notion of a common good at the state line of Minnesota, Iowa, etc.
The Democratic Party seemed to get a little traction in the 2006 congressional elections, but Obama is polling a steady 38 percent in Arizona. But nevermind Barry Obama. I think of Arizona's Barry.
I can imagine what Barry would say about a man who would put Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency — or a man who would allow himself to be forced to do so by the extremists in his party. I can imagine what Barry would say about much of John McCain's platform, performance, character… None of it is printable here.
Keep up on the latest reality-based reporting on the "Arizona senator" on Rogue's McCain Page.
Like many others, after 9/11 I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. I wrote to Senator McCain and Senator Kyl, asking them to please keep their constituents informed on what was going on. No reply was received.
This past summer, I wrote to Senator McCain to voice my displeasure on his veteran’s affairs voting record. The response from someone in his campaign was to ask me for a donation and to turn my name and address over to some kind of pro-gun magazine.
Arizona seemed poised to escape the mental gravity of Dixie in the 1990s. It even went Democratic in 1996. It was a battleground state in 2000. But since then, the path has turned back to reactionary obsessions about reproduction and taxes.
Colorado and Virginia are two states that rank fairly high in educational indices. Yet they’ve also been traditionally Republican. We’re seeing them finally diverge from the low-education, low tax status of other right-wing states. Even North Dakota, a state that ranks relatively high in education, is showing cracks in its conservative foundation. Only Utah, a virtual theocracy, remains resolutely right-wing and reasonably well-educated.
Arizona will eventually get over its own harebrained culture-war politics. But by the time it does, it will be that much further behind other states in terms of strategic investment. The dogmas of Dogpatch and The Club for Growth make for potent talk radio but are lousy ways to engage the future.
Most of the burbs are red but I’m thinking Phoenix is leaning blue. I’m not saying Obama will win here, but if he had put more effort…who knows. It’s going to be close.