LOCAL IMMIGRATION BLOWBACK

The head of the Arizona Republican Party has attacked Sen. Kyl for his immigration position and has himself been criticized by other wingnuts. It seems that the AZ GOP base, "the angry wing" of the party as Nathan Sproul called them, is at odds with the national GOP.

SIDE NOTE: The article claims that Sproul led the unsuccessful campaign to prohibit gay marriages and civil unions. I thought that the campaign was led by the Center for Arizona Policy, the local Dobson infestation.


With state GOP looking to '08 vote, party boss Pullen in the crosshairs
By Daniel Scarpinato
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 05.28.2007

(excerpts)

Pullen publicized the concerns about Kyl, in response, he said, to a flood of calls and letters from angry Republicans.

Supporters say he's standing up to the Washington elite and energizing the party base. Critics says he's further dividing a troubled party — and in the national spotlight.

GOP strategist Nathan Sproul calls Pullen's actions last week "outrageous." But back in 1999, Sproul said Pullen seemed like a different person.

"The first time I ever met Randy he struck me as far more a pro-business, country club Republican," said Sproul. "I would not have seen this type of person emerge."

Pullen lost that mayor's race, and another in 2003. Sproul and others say after the second defeat, Pullen transformed.

"He chose to align himself with the angry wing of our party to get elected national committeeman," said Sproul. That meant taking conservative positions to knock Tucsonan Mike Hellon, an abortion rights moderate, out of the job.

Sproul isn't immune to controversy. He's former head of the Arizona Christian Coalition. He led the unsuccessful campaign to define marriage in Arizona as between and man and a woman. And in the past, he has come under fire for his petitioning-gathering tactics.

Thursday, he [Sproul] launched an automated phone blast, urging Republicans to tell Pullen he's wrong — a move party spokesman Brett Mecum says has only boosted Pullen's support.

In 2005, after McCain helped reach a compromise over judicial nominations, Pullen told the Arizona Daily Star, "John is clearly John's own man. He pays very little attention to what the party rank and file want. He'd rather play to the media than to the rank and file."

Of Pullen's criticisms of the immigration bill, Mecum said, "We see it as basically trying to rally the Republican base and keep them in for the next election cycle."

UPDATE:

Transcript of Pullen's appearance on Hardball, 5/24/2007

Up next Arizona‘s Republican chairman thinks his party is saying things they shouldn‘t about this new immigration bill. We‘ll be right back to tell you about it. You‘re watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. The Senate bill on immigration reform is not playing well in Arizona, despite the fact that the two Arizona senators, Jon Kyl and, of course, John McCain, are behind it all the way. Showing his outrage, Randy Pullen, who‘s chairman of the Arizona Republican party used this graphic representation to show how the party faithful was feeling about that bill out there.

And Randy Pullen‘s with us this evening. Mr. Pullen, why are your two U.S. senators pushing a bill that is not selling with the Republican faithful?

RANDY PULLEN, ARIZONA REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIR: Well, I think what—well, first of all, let me address the graphic there. I was going through probably several hundred letters I had received with reporters. And as I was reading different sections of them, I just pulled that one out and said, here is one that you can read for yourself. It‘s just the Republican party faithful are very upset with this bill in Arizona. They do not see it as a bill that provides border security, which is a number one issue in Arizona. They see it as a blanket amnesty for all those that are here now.

MATTHEWS: Well is it? Is it? Mr. Pullen, is that what the bill does?

PULLEN: Well, I have read major sections of the bill and I think, clearly, whether you have been one month or you have been here 10 years, you get amnesty under this bill. You get to stay in this country. But more worrisome is the fact that the triggers that are provided in the bill really don‘t provide for border security. It just says we‘re going to build another 250 miles of fence along a 2,000 mile border and add 4,000 -- in essence 4,000 more border control. I do not believe that is going to secure the border at all, based on my --

MATTHEWS: Why do people say that? I completely agree with you, sir. I think anyone who thinks that a border is going—a fence is going to keep somebody out who knows there‘s a job at the other end of the run, like these poor guys running in—If there‘s a job in Chicago that pays 400 bucks a week and they are making nothing, they are going to get up there and get that job. I don‘t know.

Let me ask you this, is the problem that the last time they passed immigration reform, the Simspon/Mazzoli bill, nothing worked. It was just another pie in the sky. Everybody got legalized and nothing was done.

PULLEN: That‘s exactly what happened Chris. You know that over the past 22 years, nothing really has happened with respect to closing down the border, stopping the flow of illegal immigration. There is a lot of angst out there that that won‘t be any different this time either, that they‘re not serious about securing the border. We will end up with the same situation and this time it will be 20 or 30 million that are the legalized. And then 10 years down the road, we will be facing the same situation again.

MATTHEWS: Why don‘t the people pushing these bills see what we see, you and I see, because of history? Why don‘t they see that they‘re just solving the undocumented worker problem by giving documents to the undocumented workers. I mean, all they‘re solving is a paper—It‘s a paper solution.

PULLEN: That is exactly right. I would be the first one to say that I do believe we need some guest workers in this country. When you look at our unemployment, we have under two percent unemployment in technical skilled, college graduate workers and we have seven percent unemployment with unskilled.

MATTHEWS: I know, we need certain kind of immigrants. Anyway, thank you for very Randy Pullen. Thank you for joining us Republican party chair in Arizona. Tomorrow on HARDBALL, historian Doug Brinkley, editor of that new book on the Reagan diaries. What a great book. It‘s all good Reagan‘s actual words. I‘ve been reading it, pretty interesting stuff. Now it‘s time for “TUCKER.”