Subject: The Hill: 'McCain to skip GOP convention'
From: Jeremy Funk <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2016 17:40:32 -0400

Reaction from Brad Woodhouse, President, Americans United for Change: "Senator McCain is right that he's within an inch of his political life, but skipping the Republican convention to campaign more is not going to help matters as long he keeps refusing to do his job of dealing with the Supreme Court vacancy. What should keep McCain up at night is the recent polling<http://aufc.3cdn.net/a80240cb6b2d3e9830_2vm6bnjvl.pdf> finding that 61 percent of Independent voters in Arizona are less likely to vote for him in November if he keeps obstructing the nomination process. McCain has made an already tough reelection all the more difficult for himself. And for what?  In hopes that the seat can be filled by Donald Trump, whom he has "many concerns"<https://americanbridgepac.org/watch-john-mccain-say-he-will-support-gop-nominee-again-and-again/> about, or Ted Cruz whom he called a "wacko bird"<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/03/08/mccain-calls-paul-cruz-amash-wacko-birds/> and "crazy"? <http://www.rawstory.com/2013/11/mccain-rips-cruz-over-shutdown-stop-youre-wrong-youre-crazy/>    Once again, Senator McCain has ditched his "country first" motto for short-sighted political calculations. And whatever happened to the Bush-era McCain who said<http://www.kirkpatrickforsenate.com/blog/2016/mccain-calls-senate-wait-year-filling-supreme-court-vacancy-kirkpatrick-says-no-way/> "I strongly believe that the president's nominees deserve an up- or-down vote"?

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/276860-mccain-to-skip-gop-convention

McCain to skip GOP convention
Getty
By Alexander Bolton<http://thehill.com/author/alexander-bolton> - 04/19/16 03:23 PM EDT
Sen. John McCain<http://thehill.com/people/john-mccain> (R-Ariz.), who is facing perhaps the toughest reelection race of his career, will skip the Republican presidential nominating convention in Cleveland in July.
McCain says he will be focusing instead on his own race against Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick<http://thehill.com/people/ann-kirkpatrick>. He also has to worry about a late primary, which is scheduled for Aug. 30.
"I have to campaign for reelection, and I have always done that when I'm up," he said. "We have a late primary in Arizona."
Recent polls show McCain and Kirkpatrick deadlocked, despite McCain's nearly 30 years of service in the upper chamber and his close to 100-percent name identification.
McCain acknowledged that it's possible the party's eventual presidential nominee could drag down GOP candidates down ballot such as himself.
"That's always a concern," he said.
But he reiterated that he will support the party's eventual nominee, whomever it turns out to be.

______________________________________________________
Jeremy J. Funk
Communications Director, Americans United for Change
Office: 202.470.5878
Cell: 605.366.3654
[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>
www.AmericansUnitedforChange.org<http://www.AmericansUnitedforChange.org>
Twitter: @jeremyjfunk<https://twitter.com/JeremyJFunk>