IN MY SHOES: John McCain Is An Arizonan Through And Through
In a Washington Post op-ed Arizonan J.A. Jance, author of the Joanna Brady mystery series, describes John McCain as “a man of the West”:
McCain resonates with Arizonans. They like the fact that he hung tough through all his years as a POW, and that he refused to give up last summer when all the political pundits were busy declaring that his candidacy was over. …
That kind of stubbornness works in Arizona. It's part of our political tradition. In the 1950s, when the idea of daylight saving time was first broached in peacetime, one of our state representatives stood up in the legislative chambers and announced to all the world: “This is Arizona. We don't need any more G.D. … daylight!” When the votes were counted, the nays had it. To this day, Arizona stays true to Mountain Standard Time, while the states around it wax and wane according to the seasons. People in Arizona aren't afraid to go it alone.
Neither, apparently, is McCain. The far-right base went nuts in 2005 when he joined what was referred to as the "Gang of 14." … That was supposedly a terrible betrayal of McCain's Republican roots, but it was actually a principled reach across a gaping political divide that helped make possible the appointment of a fine Supreme Court justice, Samuel A. Alito Jr.
It's the same with immigration. The neverending tide of illegal immigrants coming across the Mexican border is a huge problem in Arizona, and it's often part of the complications in the stories I write about my fictional Cochise County sheriff, Joanna Brady. In real life and fiction both, the burden of federally mandated and unreimbursed emergency health care has put a terrible strain on local hospitals and has resulted in the closing of several trauma centers.
People in Arizona are mad as hell about that. They believe that if the feds order something, they need to pay for it. And the Constitution says that the federal government will provide for the common defense - but who's protecting the rights of the landowners whose property is being trampled and whose livestock is being damaged by the uncontrolled entry of illegal migrants crossing the border on foot and in vehicles?
McCain's stand on illegal immigration strikes me and many other Arizonans as good common sense. He wants to secure our borders first, then learn who-all is here, both legally and illegally, and then address their immigration status while at the same time undoing some of the tangled knot of esoteric visa rules that make no sense under current economic realities. That isn't nearly so tough a stand as some on the right would like it to be. On the other hand, it's way too far to the right to be acceptable to the left. Which puts him square in the middle - a good place, to my way of thinking, for a guy from Arizona. We're part of the middle. We're not East Coast, and we're not West Coast, either.
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