Friday, April 28th, 2006...6:56 am
A Democratic Primary?
Over at Spidelblog, Lefty Pooh-bah Kevin Spidel reported last week that there is a former state legislator who is planning on running against Jim Pederson. I did what I am obligated to do as my admiring (or obsessive) public expects me to do: I asked around. I found out…
…almost nothing.
Some speculation was afoot that it was Alfredo Gutierrez, who may be miffed about Pederson’s relative moderation on the immigration issue. There may also be some lingering bitterness over the 2002 gubernatorial primary, when many of Gutierrez’s supporters thought that party leaders like Pederson stacked the game against him. I don’t buy that one myself, but it is something that I still hear from folks that backed him.
I have been assured, however, that it will not be Gutierrez. I also don’t know how strong a campaign he could run after seeing his second-rate voter registration effort at the recent immigration protests. It looks like all he managed to accomplish was givng Greg Patterson a reason to make fun of him.
The other speculation I’ve heard was that he (Spidel used the pronoun “he”) is a “party switcher” from “up North.” Um, okay. Who the heck would that be, John Wettaw? Actually, I don’t even know that Wettaw has switched parties, but he is the only one that I can think of that would fit the bill. I find this highly unlikely.
This all goes with our style as Democratic party activists. The moment a candidate emerges, no matter how hard it was to find a candidate in the first place, the first thing we seem to do is complain about them. Even in those cases where there are several candidates running, we love to gripe that none of them are fit to lick the boots of Mo Udall, Sam Goddard, Henry F. Ashurst or whoever was in office decades ago. (These candidates running in CD 8? Not a single Harold “Por Que” Patten among them!) There could be twenty-three candidates running in the primary, and our activist impulse is to whine that number twenty-four hasn’t thrown his or her hat in.
I don’t know how this person plans on running. They have about six weeks to collect 4,455 signatures, plus at least a thousand as a “cushion.” I suppose once they get filed and they present themselves as a “progressive” alternative to Pederson, they imagine that the money will start coming in. The one person who I spoke with that knew the name (but the bastard wouldn’t tell me who it was!) was unimpressed by the firepower that this particular candidate could bring to the race, so I wonder if this candidate could even pull it off.
So why the heck wouldn’t this person want to be talked about? They are about to have their name and face in every paper in this state, and they want a job that will get them on Meet the Press at least once in their term. This desire for anonymity is silly if they are serious about running. Heck, don’t you want buzz about you? It would be hard to claim that progressive activists are clamoring for you to run as an alternative if you won’t tell anyone who you are.
There has been grousing from some activists that Pederson’s campaign doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. In the last few weeks, his ads have been ubiquitous and they seem to be working; a recent poll shows him gaining ground on Kyl rather quickly. This will probably take the wind out of the sails of those people who say that we need “someone else” to run against Kyl.
8 Comments
April 28th, 2006 at 9:20 am
I couldn’t figure out the “obvious reason’ for the anonymity, either. My guess was that this person had a conflict of interest and would have to resign from another position first, but it’s not a terrible breach of ethics to announce that you’re interested in running.
Whomever this person is, he doesn’t stand a chance against Pederson. Good night, and good luck.
April 28th, 2006 at 9:56 am
Actually, if Gutierrez or someone else ran at Pederson from the left, it might end up helping him (since he is way out in front already). This is the same scenario that we had in the 2002 governor’s race, and Gutierrez’ attacks on the governor as ‘too conservative,’ his highlighting some of her more moderate positions to contrast with his own, and his initial reluctance to endorse her actually did a lot to help inure her against Salmon’s attacks claiming that she was a liberal. She also got a lot of positive press just by virtue of winning the primary.
I just don’t think Alfredo realizes this.
On balance, I’d still rather see Pederson be able to focus exclusively on Kyl and not have a primary opponent, but there are benefits to a Democrat in Arizona having a not-very-competitive primary opponent, especially one running from the left.
April 28th, 2006 at 10:03 am
I’m guessing people start looking for alternatives b/c Dems have the lamest campaign staffers who can’t seem to stop letting their otherwise respectable candidates shoot themselves in the foot.
Exh A
http://www.azcentral.com/blogs/index.php?blog=85&title=did_pederson_misrepresent_kyl_s_exxon_st&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#comments
April 28th, 2006 at 11:48 am
since my glory days of working on alfredo’s race in ‘02, i’ve dreamed of his running again. i just don’t see that he would.
yes, he is one of our most distinguished living statesmen, but i think he and his family know he has bigger things to do with bringing immigration to the forefront.
the party did abandon alfredo in the primary, but we all expected it to happen. it had and always will be the go janet show.
alfredo for president.
April 28th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Anyone know how Leonard Clark is doing on his quest to get qualified?
April 28th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Leonard Clark is still running?
April 28th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
has Clark gotten out of jail yet?
May 6th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
Hello. This is Leonard Clark, The Damn Liberal. Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Yes, I am running and yes, I am real democrat, and not a moderate republican in sheep’s clothing. My website is: thedamnliberal.com
The following is the campaign update from my observations at the Arizona State Democratic Party Meeting in down town Phoenix today:
To all of you hard working grassroots activist for the campaign: this is a campaign update. Thank you for your support, because without you none of this campaign would be possible. I want you to know that this is not my campaign, it is OUR CAMPAIGN.
The Arizona state Democratic party meeting was interesting. As I was walking down one of the hallways I ran into a certain Az. Dem.. Staff consutant member who sarcastically stated: Ah, Leonard Clark the Congressman. Well, I wanted to tell him that first I was running for the Senate and that there was going to be alot of crow being eaten very soon by the elites of the party all across our great nation but I just decided to go on about the business for which I attended the meeting: to meet other progressive democrats and influence the party to stand for the truth and not continue to straddle the fence while our nation goes down the tubes to this fascist president and his party.
I first attended the immigration caucus where the room was full and there were some good speakers. The speakers, I believe did a good job in explaining and breaking down not only the immigration crisis facing Arizona and the nation but giving possible solutions for it as well. I was very sympathetic in particular to one of the speakers contentions that NAFTA had instead of helping to ease the immigration problem had only worsened it and in Mexico had precipitated a more radical atmosphere.
I got to meet great humanitarians who belonged to organizations such as “Arizona Coalition for Migrant Rights” and ” No More Deaths-No Mas Muertes www.nomoredeaths.org .” I just hope that at the end of the month when these organizations go and try to give humanitarian aid that I can go with them, this is something that I wanted to do even while I was in Iraq. Kind of a side note here but I find it rather interesting that Our American soldiers are dying over in the Desert of Iraq while other equally innocent human beings are dying in the desert of Arizona (at least 252 from last year alone according to one of the speakers at the meeting.)
After this caucus, I stepped into the Native American caucus and it was very interesting to hear their issues and concerns. I was encouraged by their unity and I hope and pray they grow very strong and influential in Amercan politics and even more so in the Democratic party. Just hearing them speak gave me inspiration for I could sense their spirtual strength which was founded on goodness and no ill will. The party needs to listen to them more.
Finally, the general meeting began for the democratic Precinct Committee members. The governor spoke and she talked about how the call bank started and her website. She joked that the volunteers at the call center could call all the Republicans who had been left behind by the Republican party, she then endorsed Harry Mitchell and openly said that she was tired of Jon Kyl so we needed to get Pederson elected. The governor, then went on to state that we had a strong democratic party in Arizona and that we owed Pederson a debt of gratitude for making a strong party. She stated that we did want to wake up on Nov. 8th and say: if we had only tried a little bit harder we could have had a democratic legislature and could have had a Senator Pederson.
Next, Fred Duvall, one of the elites of the Democratic party and of the Clinton administration got up to speak. Mr. Duvall, understandably spoke about finances since apparently he is a chairman for a finance committee of the Az. Dem.. Party. He jokingly said that he would take a quote from the war movie Apocalypse Now and state that he loved the smell of victory in the morning. He stated that we have the healthiest party financially in the U.S.. He stated that we have to raise at least 5 or 6 million more dollars to support the campaign in Arizona. He said that the potential we have for winning everything from the top of the ballot to the bottom warrants a strong revenue base. We want to incentivize you to find big donors to help us to raise big dollars.
Then another Az. State Party official got up and said that Fred Duval has brought many new faces, and new donors.
The chairman for the rules and bylaws committee got up and said that the requirement had been changed from before where when the platform for the Az. Dem.. Party needed to be changed it had to go through two committees before that change could be approved now could go straight through to the state committee but I do not know how the vote turned out on this in that I had to leave before that vote.
One of the speakers from the Immigrant Caucus Member of the Arizona State Legislature Ted Downing got up and said that mini-groups would be called mini-task forces. He strongly backed legislation in the legislature coming up that require actual manual hand recounts and he backed Mr. Shelby’s voter initiave (an activist) to bring back voter integrity to the elections of Arizona.
Then another member of the party got up and reported that the Az. Dem. Party had sent a delegation to New Orleans for the DNC meeting there. It was stated from what I could tell that the DNC passed an Iraq resolution, the details of which I am not clear on. Apparently, huge changes for a primary date were being worked on for Arizona. Mr. Duval, at one point got up and spoke about how they were trying to get the caucus system for Arizona which would force Democratic Presidential candidates to come to Arizona. Another official also stated that if these changes to how the Arizona Democratic Party picks presidential candidates are carried through that the state party meeting as whole would probably have to occur 4 to 5 times for each different presidential candidate.
In one kind of comical moment, another democratic party official got up and announced that there were 187 members in attendance and that the Arizona Democratic Party was growing very strong, then she asked who had joined the party in the last two years to please raise their hands, I counted to my recollection not more than 7 to 8 hands out of the group. This, she said was not really representative of strong the party really was.
Then Peggy Hammond, 1st Vice Chair got up and stated that the Arizona Democratic Party was no longer the size of a small business in that it now has 30 staff which makes it a medium size business.
I had to leave a little early but some of the final remarks I heard were: that if we could hold this new early primary and have the caucus system alot of money could be raised. An example from Hillary Clinton at certain meeting for one of these type events it was stated attracted 6,000 people who had paid $200.00 a head.
Finally, Duval got up again and stated that yes we were already the best funded party in the U.S. but that we needed to increase that amount of funding by 3 to 5 times.
My opinions on what I saw: the immigrant caucus was a good meeting in that grass roots people got to ask questions. Also, a member from Congressional District# came up to me and told me that the party had screwed up because in their district their there were democrats than republicans yet they had not put up a candidate. Overall, there seems to be a smugness by the party elite and the corporate democrats that the many more people who were democrats and had dropped out of the party or had become independents were not that important because money from big corporate democrats and moderater republican democrats were what mattered in a state like Arizona.
Unfortunately, in the general meeting where our top leaders spoke I heard NOT A WIT ABOUT IRAQ or Immigration being used as tool of hate for a coming “Night of Glass” by the Republicans, although I did hear the governor state that if Goddard got elected again that he would go after gas gougers. I did hear an awful lot about money and sensed a smugness, and over confidence that the “Fat lady had already sung”. Money, seemed to be the over riding issue. Now, I know there are alot of those out there saying: Duh! It’s all about money, well I couldn’t disagree more! It’s not all about money, this is the problem we are trying to correct in our political system right now. A democratic system that is being rotted away by the addictive drug of money contributions is the system we now live in.
All of this talk about new large donors makes me wonder if the same corporate bunch that has ran the party for so long still doesn’t get it. They need to realize that: “Ideas will trump money!” and that’s what our grassroots campaign for the U.S. Senate is all about because we are not as progressive Democrats going to go away even after this campaign. I am a damn liberal and proud of it! We need to tell the party elites to stop worrying the Fascist Neo-Cons who work for the Military Industrial Complex are going and start using the L word again: Liberal. Neo-Con is the new dirty, perjorative word. It has the evil, smelly conotation of the Theocratic, Fascists that I encountered in Iraq. Old and young religous clerics exhorting their followers to hate in the name of their religion or their ethnic class.
I am proud to say that if my membership to the ACLU has expired since returning from Iraq that I will renew it so that I can say: I damn proud to be a card carrying member of the ACLU because they have more back bone in sticking up for our constitution then some of the elites in our party who I guess are now by their actions aiding and abetting the Fascist who are trampling all over our constitution.
Now, I know that alot of the people you might encounter might say: Don’t you know? Leonard only has approx. only 39 days to gather his signatures but they need to know that if only six of us (hopefully alot more than that) gather 30 signatures a day (including myself) that will give us over 7 thousand signatures by Approx. June 12. I give you my pledge to fight on to the end because I know that if we all work together that we can attain signatures. Today, at the meeting, I met some very good contacts who will now go back to other parts of the state and help us get OUR GRASSROOTS ISSUES AND CAMPAIGN square on the ballot so that the press and the elites of the party can no longer ignore us.
I will keep you updated as best I can and I would like you to email me with any advice or information that can help us attain the victory that the elites do not want us to obtain. Let’s all decide if we should have meetings in different parts of the valley and the state where our supporters (you) the real party can meet. You the grass activist are the real party and you alone will prove that: “ideas will (in this cynical age) trump money. ” to the chagrin of corporate America.
Sincerely,
Leonard Clark
Your Damned Liberal, P.S. spread the word of our campaign call into every radio show and tell the press!
Inner City School Teacher,
Desert Storm/Iraq War III Vet
and
Candidate for the U.S Senate in Arizona
IMPEACH BUSH! NOT ONE MORE AMERICAN SOLDIER SHOULD DIE IN IRAQ! N.O.M.A.S.!
Sincerely,
Leonard Clark’
The Damn Liberal thedamnliberal.com,
Inner City School Teacher,
Desert Storm/Iraq War III Vet
and Democratic Candidate for
the U.S. Senate in Arizona
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