Topic category:  Partisan Politics

It's no secret that there were some sore losers in the 2016 Republican presidential nomination race and several prominent members of the Republican political establishment have been distancing themselves from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, banking on Trump supporters voting for Republican Congressional nominees, hoping to keep Republican control of Congress and looking forward to 2020.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was reelected in 2014 and doesn't have to worry about facing Kentucky voters again until 2020, when McConnell should be 80 and planning his retirement, so expect him to continue to quibble with Trump instead of to attack Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton...UNLESS McConnell suddenly realizes that there won't be a Republican Senate majority in 2017 if he doesn't change his ways.

Speaker of the House and unsuccessful 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan has been trying to remake Trump in his own image instead of accepting the will of the voters that Trump be the leader of the Republican Party.

Ryan is running for renomination in a Wisconsin congressional district in a few days and expected to win overwhelmingly, at least until Trump took the opportunity to send a message by pointedly refusing to endorse Ryan in his primary. Echoing Ryan's words in explaining why he did not endorse Trump after Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump said he is "not quite there yet."

Ryan replied that he had not asked for Trump's endorsement, but that wasn't the point and if Ryan doesn't win his primary by more than 50%, Republican candidates distancing themselves from Trump will have cause to pause.

In addition, Trump also declined to endorse the latest reelection campaign of unsuccessful 2012 Republican presidential nominee and incumbent Senator John McCain, much better known these days as a regular Trump critic than a perfunctory or tepid Trump supporter.

Trump's Arizona Republican supporters have a golden opportunity to send a message to the Republican establishment that Trump supporters across the nation will not be taken for granted by voting for challenger Kelli Ward instead of McCain.

In 2012, McCain begged one last term by pledging to support a "dang fence."

It was about as credible as Hillary Clinton's tales about her email and Benghazi, but McCain got one last term.

The Arizona border is still insecure, of course and might end up more so, in part because McCain after losing to President Obama, said "election's have consequences" and then voted to confirm La Raza favorite Sonia Sotomayor as a "progressive" Supreme Court justice.

Ward is much more likely to help Trump do what is needed to make America great again than McCain is.

Just as the next President will either be Trump or Hillary Clinton, only Ward or McCain can win the Arizona Republican Senate primary on August 30.

Arizona Republicans, make America great again by making it Ward.

If McCain loses, such Republican Senators up for reelection as Kelli Ayotte of New Hampshire, Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania will realize that they can't criticize Trump with impunity and the Republican establishment will support instead of try to circumvent Trump and Trump's enthusiastic supporters.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.