Trump voters changed, not Jeff Flake

Arizona Republic Editor Phil Boas got it right this morning (March 15) in his editorial “Jeff Flake didn’t change; Trump voters did.” I can attest to this because I have followed Flake’s political career from the beginning when he was hired as the Goldwater Institute’s executive director. At the time, I was on the Institute’s executive committee and I was serving as executive director following the resignation of our founder. Consequently, I had the primary responsibility for vetting the applicants. Our primary concern in seeking a new director was to find someone committed to the principles of liberty that the Goldwater Institute was formed to defend. I can attest to the fact that Jeff Flake has always maintained the strongest commitment to these principles. And, as I mentioned in a prior editorial, Jeff has a secret weapon: niceness. You can disagree with him (and I do on a few issues) but you can’t not like him. He may face both a tough primary and a tough general election but he will prevail.