Conservatives with reputations for strong opposition to a guest worker program for illegal immigrants favored by the Bush Administration captured the Republican party chairmanships in Arizona and Kansas over the weekend.

Arizona Republican National Committeeman Randy Pullen, who made headlines last year by offering a resolution to put the RNC on record against a guest worker program, won the chairmanship at this state’s GOP convention in a photo-finish. By a vote of 408-to-404, Pullen edged out Lisa Adams, operating head of the Bush-Cheney campaign in the Grand Canyon State in ’04. The convention was held at the Sunnyslope High School, drawing a standing-room-only crowd that included Sen. Jon Kyl and three GOP U.S. House Members.

Absent but well-accounted for was the state’s senior senator, presidential hopeful John McCain. Although publicly neutral, McCain was “widely believed to have preferred James” to succeed outgoing Chairman Matt Salmon, according to the Arizona Republic. Pullen was a vigorous backer of Proposition 200, the ’04 statewide initiative to block undocumented immigrants from voting and obtaining certain services. Before the vote, the Phoenix businessman told me he also disagreed with McCain on his ’03 campaign finance measure that has increased reporting and limited so-called “soft money” in federal campaigns and national party organizations.

In Kansas, two years after he was defeated for Congress by Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore, conservative swashbuckler Kris Koback managed a dramatic comeback by winning the state GOP chairmanship over a crowded field of opponents. A law professor and onetime assistant to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Kobach won the GOP nod for Congress over a more moderate candidate in ’04 in large part because of his championship of a get-tough approach with illegal immigrants and opposition to a guest worker program.