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FYI... to avoid confusion and arguments... we do NOT
support McCain!!!
Elsie

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[article provided by Lona. Thanks!]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/p/AP-McCain-Indians.html
February 21, 2000

McCain Courts American Indian Voters

Filed at 4:43 p.m. EST
By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rookie congressman John McCain flew 2,000 miles to
Winslow, Ariz., in the early 1980s to check out Robert Pictou-Branscombe's
work with American Indian veterans.

McCain's House district was hundreds of miles away in Phoenix, and he told
Pictou-Branscombe he was skeptical of the federal program to give job
training to Indian veterans. But Pictou-Branscombe, himself a Vietnam
veteran, showed McCain how his efforts with Navajo and Hopi veterans were
paying off.

``He changed his mind about it and went back to D.C. and had that program
extended for five years,'' said Pictou-Branscombe, now retired and living in
Rimrock, Ariz.

Now McCain is relying on his 17-year history with Indian causes to help
persuade traditionally Democratic Indian voters to support his Republican
presidential campaign. It worked with Pictou-Branscombe, a member of
Canada's Micmac tribe and a naturalized U.S. citizen.

``I'm a registered Democrat, and I'm going to be voting for McCain,'' he
said, adding that he would switch to the GOP to vote in Arizona's primary
Tuesday.

McCain has campaigned on the Navajo reservation in his home state. His
Indian outreach efforts are headed by former Navajo Nation president
Peterson Zah and former National Congress of American Indians president Ron
Allen.

``John McCain is the only candidate that's currently in the race that has a
good track record on American Indian issues,'' said Zah, who also changed
his voter registration from Democrat to Republican.

Indians make up only 0.7 percent of the voting-age population nationally.
But more than 5 percent of Arizonans are Indian, an important number if his
home-state primary is a close contest. Recent polls in Arizona give McCain a
double-digit advantage over Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

Bush, too has sought Indian endorsements in the state. One prominent Indian
to endorse Bush is former Hopi tribal chairman Ivan Sidney, a longtime
Republican.

Sidney said he became friends with the governor's father, the former
president, at the 1992 Republican convention. Sidney added he felt slighted
that McCain would not return his phone calls and visited the Navajo capital
of Window Rock, not Hopi headquarters 50 miles away at Kykotsmovi.

``Bush has embraced the minority parties and embraced education'' in Texas,
Sidney said.

McCain supporters say Bush alienated many Indian leaders last year when he
said ``state law reigns supreme when it comes to the Indians, whether it be
gambling or any other issue.'' Zah said such a remark showed ignorance of
constitutional and treaty provisions giving the federal government the lead
role in dealing with tribal governments.

Sidney also said Bush's remark showed ignorance.

``It would be up to individuals such as myself that support Governor Bush to
begin to start educating or explaining to him the uniqueness of the Indian
reservations,'' Sidney said.

Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush's comment referred to a Supreme
Court ruling that said states cannot be sued for refusing to negotiate
casino agreements with tribes. McClellan said Bush ``respects the
longstanding tribal sovereignty and self-governance of Native Americans.''

McCain's Indian supporters say his legislative record, including a stint as
chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, shows a longstanding
commitment to fulfilling tribes' needs.

For example, he helped write a 1994 law directing the Interior Department to
clean up longstanding problems with about $3 billion in trust accounts for
tribes and individual Indians.

``I think he understands what this government-to-government relationship is
all about in a way that few other politicians do, and is willing to battle
for it,'' said Keith Harper, a Cherokee lawyer representing Indians suing
over the trust accounts.
 

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