Chris Simcox, Giving McCain Hell in 2010?

Larrey Anderson, a blogger and former Idaho state Senator, makes an interesting supposition in his piece on the American Thinker. While recognizing the obvious need for a new generation of political leader with in the GOP he also makes the proposal of drawing them from the recent boom of conservative activists. (i.e. Tea Party organizers)

Here is Mr. Anderson's idea in his own words.

What the tea parties did, in real political terms, was teach a whole new set of potential candidates that organizing and becoming actively involved in on the ground politics is a lot of work ... but it is NOT rocket science.

If a person can organize an event and get thousands of people to show up, that same person can easily collect the few hundred signatures on a petition necessary to get on the ballot to run for office. (The number of signatures varies from state to state and from office to office; but it is never more than a couple of thousand signatures. Usually it is around one to five hundred, in some states even less.)

Not too long after reading this I received an email from Jason, one of our contributors here at PACT, mentioning an interesting situation developing in Arizona for Senator John McCain.

From Ben Smith's Blog,

Chris Simcox, the founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a prominent figure in the movement to clamp down on illegal immigration, will be announcing tomorrow at an event on the Mexican border that he's resigned from the group to run in the 2010 Senate primary.

Although not from the Tea Party movement, Simcox, is what you might call a first generation conservative activist. He was primarily concerned with the illegal immigration problem that Arizona is facing. This led to him forming the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps almost seven years ago. Simcox will obviously be challenging McCain for his Senate seat in Arizona in the upcoming elections.

Whether or not he can seriously run against McCain is another story alltogether.

Despite this, Simcox is the first right leaning activist, that I personally have come across, announcing that they are making a serious run for political office in 2010. However, I am left to wonder if he will be the last.

If you are interested in information on Simcox's campaign please visit his website.