Saturday, September 3rd, 2005...4:39 pm
He’s Out, He’s In
Because I write this blog, people think I have some sort of corner on political knowledge. I know how many bloggers are self-important pedants that think they know everything, but this seems to be abetted by the people who read the blogs that think that somehow a blogger has access to all sorts of secret knowledge.
What they don’t realize is that we only know stuff if the rest of you tell us. The “secret” knowledge I have is more because I pay a bit more attention than some others.
Take for example, a conversation I had last night.
“What do you know about Vernon Walker getting back into the race?”
First I heard of it, really.
You all may recall that Walker was trashed in a long cover story in the Tucson Weekly last week for never voting, shady buisiness practices and being a tax cheat. This propted Walker to drop out of the race last Wednesday. Walker, of course, blamed his “political opponents” and claimed that his family recieved death threats. Yeah, right.
Walker tried to pay off one of the many default judgements against him, but he saw the writing was on the wall.
So, why the heck would he be talking about getting back in?
Well, because of the way campaign finance laws work, the Republicans need a “slate” of at least three candidates to run a “coordinated effort.” Without a third candidate, their hands are tied. The Republican Party will be legally unable to spend money promoting the candidates.
This begs the question of why they couldn’t recruit a competent candidate in Ward 5. They made a big deal about opening a “campaign office” on the South Side a couple of years ago (it was in the back of an office on South 12th Avenue and President), then quietly closed it to no fanfare.
Since a candidate needs to win city wide, the registration advantage in the ward shouldn’t be a barrier to recruiting candidates. Heck, Councilmember Roy Laos, the last Republican to represent the area, never won the ward. Are they saying there are no decent, articulate Republicans in the area? What does this say about how seriously they take the needs of the citizens of the South Side?
Next question: What would allow him to do this?
Well, it’s simple. From a legal standpoint, he never dropped out. The deadline for dropping out passed a few weeks ago, and his name will be on the ballot anyway. Being that he has no opponent in the primary, he can get nominated with no effort whatsoever.
If the Republicans are asking him to do this despite everything just so they can spend money on the other races, it shows they really don’t care who runs for and gets elected to the council.
NB - Interestingly, the Arizona Daily Star never ran word one about any of these allegations until he dropped out of the race, then only gave them two paragraphs in the story. So, why did the much less serious allegations about a certain Democratic legislator deserve two full stories in a week, but the allegations against Walker doesn’t justify any ink?
3 Comments
September 3rd, 2005 at 6:24 pm
oh you know as well as I do it is that damn “liberal media” that hates anyone not of the Republican party.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:39 am
Ronstadt and Dunbar are not running under the city matching funds program so they can raise as much money as they want, so long as individuals give no more than 370 dollars.
It really should be enough.
September 6th, 2005 at 11:11 am
Well that’s depressing Art….
Leave a Reply