Arizona has been badly served by its two Senators–John McCain and Jon Kyl– who have become so right wing, anti immigrant, anti gay, out to do anything to prevent any social or economic progress or foreign policy advancements! 🙁
McCain was once considered a moderate and a maverick, but that now seems long gone, and McCain himself so labeled himself as never having been a maverick as he ran a right wing campaign to hold on to his Senate seat this year. 🙁
McCain showed a lack of leadership during the financial panic of 2008, chose the absolutely most disastrous possible Vice Presidential running mate in Sarah Palin, and has constantly reneged on what he believed in and advocated during his earlier years in the Senate.
Jon Kyl also originally was perceived as a moderate, but has lately become a bitter man like McCain, and is blocking the START Treaty, fought against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as vehemently as McCain, and is also leading the fight against the September 11 First Responders Medical legislation, a shameful action, which lowers the esteem any reasonable person can have of Kyl! 🙁
When one compares these two present Arizona Senators to past Senator Barry Goldwater, the classical Mr. Conservative, one has to actually wish for the “good old days” of the 1960s, when Goldwater stood on principle, but cooperated with John F. Kennedy, and later came out for abortion rights and gay rights, and said regarding the military that as long as a soldier can shoot straight, who cares if he is straight?
Goldwater may have been a conservative, but he was never a bitter, hateful obstructionist on so many issues as John McCain and Jon Kyl have now proved to be! 🙁
It just goes to show how far the Republican party has moved from the mainstream where it was located in the 1960s, 1970s, and even the 1980s! 🙁