Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

For some reason, I can’t sleep. I could say it is because of my excitement over the possiblility of a race in District 8, but that would make me a total goon. Plus, it isn’t actually true. I mean the excitement part. The goon part may be true.

I thought I’d write a bit about some things to consider when you think about the candidates as they emerge:

Resign to Run: Because of the “resign to run” law, remember that any current office holder has to be extremely coy about their intentions. You will not see the field of candidates “gel” until mid January. This means that candidates such as Randy Graf and Jeff Latas can build support while other candidates are forced to pretend they aren’t running. It also means that they will probably not be able to get high profile endorsements while people wait to see who might actually declare.

This can also work out well for the office holders too. Since someone like Steve Huffman or Ted Downing cannot legally declare for the office, they have the time to find out if they will actually have support before they declare, rather than declaring early and realizing in March that they can’t even get enough signatures on their petitions.

Legislators Are Not As Big a Deal as They Think They Are: In 2000, I was walking a petition for then-Senator George Cunningham, who was mounting a bid to run against Jim Kolbe. I got to a house where a man was reading the front page of the Arizona Daily Star. That morning, above the fold, was a story about the legislature, with a picture of Cunningham, who held a leadership post. I asked the man if he’d like to sign a petition for Cunningham. He said, “Who?”

I told the story to Cunningham, thinking he’d find it funny. Instead, it just made him angry.

One of our problems here in Southern Arizona is that the newspapers really don’t cover the legislature. The stories that they run usually come from Howard Fischer, who writes stories for the entire state with no particular emphasis on Southern Arizona legislators. County officials are much more likely to be well known here. The role of county government in Pima County and the Counties of “Greater Arizona” is far more prominent than it is in Maricopa County.

One Elaine Richardson supporter told me in 2002 that she would win the race against Raúl Grijalva because she “outranked” him, as if this is any sort of consideration in the minds of voters.

This also applies to endorsements from legislators. Few of them have any sort of juice on the ground and can’t move voters. The exceptions to this in recent years are the late Sen. Andy Nichols and Supervisor Ramón O. Valadez when he was a legislator. These guys both had strong community and organizational ties before they were elected though; neither built an organization because they were legislators.

Interestingly, Sen. Gabrielle Giffords was a sort of local celebrity before she was elected, so she has the profile that could also make her an exception to this rule.

If you want to find sitting legislators who have been elected to represent Southern Arizona in congress, you have to go all the way back to Lewis Douglas, who served in the 20’s and 30’s before resigning to write budgets for Franklin Roosevelt (quite a frustrating job, that). Both Jim Kolbe and Jim McNulty had lost races for higher office as sitting legislators, then were able to get elected as former legislators.

Another piece of trivia for you: the last sitting legislator to be elected one of our US Senators was Henry Fountain Ashurst. To give you an idea how long ago this was, he was a member of the territorial legislature.

Forget the Phoenix Media: I wrote a bit about an article in the Business Journal of Phoenix that detailed a list of candidates that seemed to bear only the most coincidental resemblance to the political facts on the ground. For example, they did not mention Supervisor Ray Carroll, who seems to be one of the two top Republican candidates right now. One has to remember that Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise Counties are outside of the coverage areas of the Arizona Republic as well as most other Phoenix media. They do not follow our politics and know little about it.

There also is an assumption on the part of both the Phoenix media and among some parts of the political establishment up there that serious politicians have to do some time in the legislature. Something to consider though is that a local elected official is here all 12 months of the year, often getting their face on TV. A legislator cuts out of the area to go up to Phoenix, and works largely in the dark from local media.

Where Do You Live?: Short point here, but you don’t actually need to live in the district to run for congress. Mo Udall’s residence, for a time, was in Oro Valley, outside of then-district 2. Theoretically, a guy from Lake Havasu City could file. It would be silly, but things like this happen. Look for at least one candidate from the valley (this is one of two districts that include no part of it) to try to make a go of it.