The woman at the podium was angry about U.S. immigration policy.
She loudly criticized President Bush, Senate Republicans and business interests, telling a Tucson audience they were working against the kind of solution that most Americans want.
"We're going to hold Republicans responsible," she said as the crowd of more than 100 responded with loud applause.
Democrats? Immigration rights advocates? Far from it. This was a meeting of Republicans.
Few issues divide the GOP like illegal immigration, as this gathering at a Downtown hotel on Friday morning showed.
On one side are conservatives like Bay Buchanan, the woman who fired up the hotel audience with her promise of retribution.
Buchanan, the sister of television commentator and onetime presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, came to Tucson with Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado as part of what they're calling a "Secure America Now" tour. Their goal: pressure U.S. senators to beef up border security and reject creation of a guest-worker program for foreign laborers.
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On the other side are pro-business Republicans like Sen. John McCain and Rep. Jim Kolbe of Tucson, both backers of guest-worker legislation. They dismiss the get-tough-only approach, saying it will do little to stem the flow of illegal border crossers who enter the United States, primarily for economic reasons.
Meeting with reporters earlier this week, McCain acknowledged the rift over immigration within the Republican Party, but defended his stance as the "right thing to do."
"I've taken a position on immigration reform which many members of the Republican Party are very much opposed to," he said. "If it causes me to suffer politically, then I will be more than eager to take the consequences.
As for the position of Buchanan and Tancredo, McCain said, "No expert that I know believes that that's the sum total of a solution."
Tancredo, asked about that comment on Friday, said, "I don't know what experts, of course, he's talking to." But, the congressman added, "there is a great sentiment in the land" to secure the country's borders before making it easy for businesses to find cheap labor.
"Our primary responsibility as the federal government is not to ensure a bottom line for corporate America," he said. "There is this marriage at the hip, it seems to me, certainly in my party to a great extent, that has prevented us from doing what we should be doing: securing the border."
Tancredo and Buchanan made a stop at the state Capitol in Phoenix on Thursday and were scheduled to travel to Benson and Willcox before heading to New Mexico on Friday night. In Tucson, they endorsed the congressional campaign of Randy Graf, a former state lawmaker from Green Valley who hopes to succeed Kolbe.
Graf made immigration and border security the central themes of his unsuccessful primary run against Kolbe in 2004. Kolbe announced his retirement in November.
Buchanan and Tancredo were interrupted by hecklers as they spoke to Graf supporters at the Hotel Arizona on West Broadway. Amber St. John was escorted from the meeting room after she waved a sign proclaiming "Real Solutions."
"Enforcement-only laws are not working," she said afterward. "It's a message based on hate."
That was echoed by Ora Mae Harn, the 73-year-old former mayor of Marana. "I was not impressed with Miss Buchanan. I don't believe in negative campaigning. This is a country of positive people," she said.
"I'm a Republican, a very conservative Republican," Harn continued. "But I'm also a business person. I understand business. We need to find a way for people to come in and work, not build a Berlin Wall on the border."
