Accusations of GOP flip-flops are flying

Andrea Kelly and Rhonda Bodfield
Arizona Daily Star
June 13, 2010 12:00 am

Apparently Congressional District 8 is infested with fish out of water lately.

At least, that's what you'd think if you listen to all of the flip-flopping accusations flying about the Republican primary candidates - like floundering fish, flip-flopping on the beach.

And all that wiggling and flopping is confined to just one position: what to do about the border.

Flip. Jonathan Paton said Jesse Kelly sometimes says there should be troops on the border and sometimes says there shouldn't be.

Flop. Brian Miller said Kelly has changed his position on how many people should be allowed to immigrate here.

Kelly hasn't responded in kind, suggesting similar behavior by his opponents. But the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which doesn't even have a horse in the Republican primary, took a shot at Kelly's chief rival for the nomination. The committee said Paton has said it's OK for the extra troops on the border to be in an auxiliary role, and then said they shouldn't be doing desk jobs.

So far, Andy Goss who's been away on military duty, hasn't done any finger- pointing. And Jay Quick just wants civility in politics.

The Life of Brian

In what seems a final indignity, former Republican candidate for governor John Munger's name is wrong in a current Time magazine story about Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz's murder.

One more blow to someone who was already having a bad week.

Munger, whom Time renamed "Brian," dropped out of the governor's race because he was being massively outspent by another candidate who, like himself, was using private, not public, campaign funds. As a result - at least at that time - that meant the clean-elections candidates were going to get so much in matching funds that Munger's meager $325,000 campaign fund would potentially have been more than $1 million short of the candidate with the next-smallest war chest.

But Munger had barely finished pulling the plug on his campaign when the Supreme Court overturned the distribution of matching funds. Too late. He had already begun the formal process to withdraw.

The Time story is a remnant of his campaign, reported at a time when he was still a candidate. Munger is quoted saying that Gov. Jan Brewer should have signed Arizona's new immigration law earlier than she did.

There's no longer a John in the race to rule the state, but, hey guys, there never was a Brian.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/govt-an ... b92af.html