John McCain (center)

The bad news for John McCain and the people running his presidential campaign is that some of his GOP rivals have decided to take the fight to him in Arizona, said Matt Salmon, who is serving as McCain’s state co-chairman.

In past presidential campaigns, generally candidates simply forfeited a leading contender’s home state and spent their time and money elsewhere. Not this year.

Republicans Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul all have been on barn-storming tours through the 48^th state trying to pick up money and votes. As a result, McCain has had to spend time here as well, Salmon said.

Finishing second to Romney or Giuliani in Arizona simply is not an option.

The good news is that despite Romney’s and Giuliani’s raids, McCain still holds a commanding position here, Salmon said. In fact, McCain will do quite well in Arizona, he said. Salmon’s predictions:

1)      McCain will take the Arizona Republican primary;

2)      McCain will win the nation Republican nomination;

3)      McCain will take Arizona again in the general election, no matter which Democrat opposes him.

“Arizona definitely will go Republican again, especially if the nominee is Hillary Clinton – and I think that’s a fait accompli,” Salmon said. “Now, if it were Bill Clinton, I would say something different. But if it’s Hillary Clinton, there’s no doubt in my mind that Arizona is going to go Republican.”

For much more on the Arizona primary election, check out my story that ran in Thursday’s paper: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/102064

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 12:51 pm and is filed under John McCain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.