Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain’s team is on a campaign to rid the Arizona Republican Party of tea party officials, replacing them with allies to the senator in advance of an expected bid for a sixth term in 2016.
According to Politico. which spoke to nearly a dozen sources, McCain’s team has been working with strategists and fundraisers across the country to undermine the standing of conservatives in his state who could pose a challenge to his political future.
“There’s been a huge organizational effort that I’ve never seen before,” Gordon James, an Arizona public relations executive and McCain ally, told Politico. “A lot of the party folks who were hostile to John McCain have been marginalized, and that’s a good thing.”
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In January, members of the state committee lead by tea party supporters formally censured the 2008 GOP presidential nominee for not being conservative enough, particularly on the issues of immigration and the Affordable Care Act.
Since then, McCain’s team managed to oust the man who authored the censure resolution, Timothy Schwartz, who had been serving as a GOP legislative district chairman.
“It’s very clear what’s going on,” Schwartz told Politico, blaming his ouster on McCain. “Look, John McCain has prominence and money and influence and because of that he thinks he can ramrod us.”