Bfgrn
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- Apr 4, 2009
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The sole black Republican Party district chairman in Arizona resigned from his post in the wake of Saturday's shooting, citing threats from the Tea Party faction and concerns for his family's safety.
District Chairman Anthony Miller and several others resigned.
Miller, a 43-year-old Ahwatukee Foothills resident and former campaign worker for U.S. Sen. John McCain, was re-elected to a second one-year term last month. He said constant verbal attacks after that election and Internet blog posts by some local members with Tea Party ties made him worry about his family's safety.
The first and only African-American to hold the party's precinct chairmanship, Miller said he has been called "McCain's boy," and during the campaign saw a critic form his hand in the shape of a gun and point it at him.
"I wasn't going to resign but decided to quit after what happened Saturday," Miller said. "I love the Republican Party but I don't want to take a bullet for anyone."
His resignation comes in the wake of the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Tucson), and the killing of several others, including a federal judge, at a political rally over the weekend. Although there have been no links discovered between the shooter, Jared Loughner, and the Tea Party, political opponents have blamed the movement and one of its major figures, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, for creating an atmosphere that encourages violence.
Last month, Miller was re-elected to his second term as district chairman following the November general election, which saw Democratic incumbents like U.S. Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.) and state Rep. Rae Waters (D-Ahwatukee Foothills) unseated in favor of Republican candidates.
Miller said the recent party election involved infighting between Miller and his allies and a "radical" local Tea Party faction calling itself the "New Vision" slate.
"There's trouble within the Republican Party," he said. "I'm seeing this new faction, the Sarah Palin type of Republicans."
The Arizona Republic
Ahwatukee Foothills News
Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.
Barry Goldwater