Last Wednesday (8/11/10), an article titled "Graham County GOP Chairman, John Duane Rhodes, bullying JD Hayworth Supporters!" was posted on the "JD Hayworth Alliance (formerly the 'Sonoran Alliance) Blog.
We received an e-mail & a telephone call from John Rhodes, the longtime Republican Chairman of Graham County.
Mr. Rhodes tells us what REALLY happened:
JD HAYWORTH FIELD DIRECTOR SHANE WIKFORS THREATENS GRAHAM COUNTY GOP CHAIRMAN! from Tony Goprano on Vimeo.
CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE THREAT MADE TO CHAIRMAN RHODES!
From: rhodesconstruction@hotmail.com
To: tonygoprano@aol.com
Subject: Response to 'article' in the Sonoran Alliance
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 11:06:55 -0700
This so called 'bullying' started out Wednesday (August 11, 2010) morning a couple of blocks below my home at approx. 7:45 am I actually have a jobsite going on down the road.
I had secured permission from the bank manager at Chase to place signs on a lot the bank owns. Hayworth supporter Bruce Barton was driving T-posts into the ground.
I pulled over and asked him if he had secured permission. He replied "yes" and made a very negative comment to me. At that point, I drove off.
After the bank opened, I asked the manager if anyone had asked permission for that particular sign. She said I was the only one that had asked. The next day the manager did say an unknown person came into the bank about 3:00 pm and said they had thought someone else owned the property. They did not know it was owned by the bank and wanted to know if it was ok to leave the sign there. The manager agreed it was ok.
The second 'incident' referred to in the article occurred when, across the street from my construction yard (the front office of which I donate to the Graham County GOP as our headquarters), Bruce Barton had placed a 3' X 8' JD Hayworth sign in a "little old lady's" small front yard. I pulled in to her drive to ask if she was ok with this.
She did not answer the door, and I left.
Approximately 2 minutes later at 10:08 a.m. my wife's phone rang. It was Sharon, the "little old lady" whose family has been friends with ours since the 1800's. She is also a PC with whom I have spent time in gathering signatures for her petitions. Sharon saw me drive off and was upset thinking that I had put the JD Hayworth 3' X 8' sign in her front yard.
I informed her that it was Bruce Barton, not me, that had put the sign up. She said, "Who the hell does he think he is?" I offered her help in getting it down if she did not want it in her yard. Her affirmative response was that she wanted it down now. I let her know that if I was to take it down I would call law enforcement prior to removing it.
I drove from my house to hers, which is only approximately 600 feet.
Sharon said she had talked to Bruce and he would be over in a while to take it down. Sharon and I had another conversation that took place at 12.06 PM. She said she called again after our conversation earlier, and Bruce had told her that he was busy but would try to get there at 4:00 PM. I looked out the window of my construction yard and saw the sign was still there and that she was home.
When I went to Sharon's she came out and we walked to the sign. She needed pliers to remove the wires; I went to my truck to get them. She said I can get my own if you can't find yours. She did use my pliers; I did remove the posts and we set everything on the north side of her home. She thanked me and said we should lay them on the side so when he gets here they can pick them up.
Sharon told me later that afternoon a man by the name of Carter picked up the signs and apologized for the stress, and for putting them up without her knowledge or permission. That evening, my wife called. She was upset, saying there was a voice mail message on our home phone from a man by the name of Shane Wikfors.
He had called and left a threatening message. I listened to the message and found it was full of misinformation. I did reply via voicemail stating this was totally inaccurate, but I never received an answer.
I did go to the Safford police department and asked if any call had been made about this. They did an incident report #10-017761. It states "I advised that we do not have any record on file of this report".
This is just another lie from the Sonoran Alliance.
By the way, I believe there are only 3 or 4 McCain 4' x 8' left in Graham County. We have mysterious winds here that seem to cut wire and slice and dice many of our candidates' signs. It seems if you are part of a group running together as a team the wind doesn't effect your campaign signs.
Here are the facts. I did not follow anyone around as they were putting up signs. I did notice a sign up across the street from my office, as would anyone else. The only person I talked to about the signs was Bruce Barton, asking him if he had permission to put one up on the bank's property. There was no "visibly shaken...little old lady" involved in any situation described in the article.
Because of the non-existence of the "little old lady", there was no police report. Sharon called me and asked me if I had put the unwanted JD Hayworth sign up in her yard and let me know she wanted it down.
In conclusion I feel it is a measure of desperation by Shane and
whoever wrote the Wed 11 Aug 2010 article in the Sonoran Alliance to discredit anyone not behind his chosen candidates in this primary.
Remember we are all Republicans, and our job is to get Republicans in these offices in January. We cannot do it eating our own. Whoever wrote that article needs to engage their brain and check the facts before putting out hit pieces on another fellow Republican or anyone else. Do the words "LIBEL / SLANDER" mean anything to you? MY attorney knows what they mean.
Thank You
John D. Rhodes
Graham County GOP Chairman
Safford, AZ 85546
Chairman John Rhodes is the recipient of the 2009 Barry Goldwater Award, which is the highest honor given by the Arizona Republican Party
Shane Wikfors and his band McCain Haters should apologize to Chairman John Rhodes IMMEDIATELY! Of course they won't but it's OK.
This nasty campaign run by Team Hayworth has been noticed across the country. Their total desperation is showing; they will stoop to new lows to try to win.
But their days in Arizona politics are NUMBERED. Watch for the 'blame game' to start early. Going to be fun to watch them try to 'spin their way' out the huge loss they are about to take on August 24th!
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