1990 article excerpt:
McCain, who faces reelection in 1992, has engaged in a sort of public mea culpa. He said he can understand why people would question his meetings with federal regulators on the Keating case, but added that he did nothing wrong.
Talking about the case last weekend, McCain seemed, in a word, miserable.
"I grow so weary of this, day in and day out," the senator said, gazing off into space and talking without pause. "There's a feeding frenzy in the media. This will go on indefinitely. It was just on 'Prime Time Live.' You national media are all coming out here. There's no way to control it. Every day there are questions. The acrimony is awful. I grow pretty weary of it."
McCain bristled, though, when he was asked about Ed Buck's possible recall campaign. "Surely you don't give Mr. Buck any credence?" he demanded.
The problem for both senators is that many Arizonans do give Buck credence. The businessman won considerable esteem for his Mecham recall drive.
At one point in that campaign, Mecham announced triumphantly to the media that he had discovered that Buck is a "militant homosexual." Confronted with this charge, Buck replied calmly, "He's right. So what?" Quickly, people all over Arizona were wearing bright pink buttons that read "Militant Heterosexual."
This time, Buck is running essentially a one-man organization out of his home called "Beyond Recall." He said he has not yet decided whether to mount a recall campaign against the two senators, but noted in the same breath that his Mecham recall drive garnered more than the number of signatures needed to force both senators to face a recall election.
Buck clearly loves the limelight, and he seems to be a popular figure here. Last week, he printed bogus $10 bills bearing McCain's and Deconcini's pictures in place of Alexander Hamilton's and the notation "illegal tender for favoritism." Within days, the Secret Service seized the flyers, saying they looked too much like real currency.
That won Buck considerable sympathy – and set the phones ringing at his stark desert home amid the tall cactus north of Phoenix. "I never cared much about the recall, but this is outrageous," barked Sig Rodriguez, who called from Tucson to express support. "Send me one of those petitions, and I'll get all the signatures you need."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/01/16/at-sl-scandals-home-base-senators-face-arizonas-anger/9b99ae77-f826-42dd-8756-eba34c523bf1/