Saturday, May 20th, 2006...9:50 am
Great, Two Fewer Candidates for Me to Poke Fun At
Our political firmament became a bit more void yesterday when former City Councilman Bruce Wheeler and former Rep. Mark Thompson threw in the towel, called it a day and left the stage.
(I’m hearing that I should use more metaphors. Or are those similes?)
To their credit, neither candidate said that they “needed to spend more time with their families.”
Wheeler served on the City Council here for many years, and I helped him out with his last run for that office back in 1991. Interestingly, he first was elected to that office with a little help from Mo Udall’s operation, who were bitter because of the imcumbent councilman’s support for Mo’s primary opponent, Luis Gonzales. Yes, sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but Mo could play the revenge game as well as anyone. It was the fact that he could do it with a smile is one of the reasons we miss him.
One of Wheeler’s more infamous (not bad, just infamous) acts while on the council was cutting down the fence at Kennedy Park during a Cinco de Mayo festival. Organizers took a piece of a public park, fenced it off, and charged people for entering, a clear violation of policy established by the council. When city staff took no action, Wheeler got a pair of bolt cutters and took care of it himself.
Wheeler was also part of a crew called the “Tucson Crazies,” a group of liberal (that was the word in those days) legislators from Tucson the included Morris Farr and Sister Claire Dunn that caused no end of trouble for the folks in Phoenix back in the late 1970’s. Those were the days.
He said he had trouble establishing ID in Phoenix. Well, does anyone know who the heck Israel Torres is either? I wonder if the real reason was his lack of strong name ID down here, where he had not been involved in public life since a quixotic bid for mayor in 1995.
I always found Mark Thompson to be a cypher, yet another cookie cutter self righteous Maricopa County conservative, easily replaceable, like those hierlings in James Bond movies. Well, he was taller and balder than most, with one of those builds one aquires from too many hours at a gym rather than actual sports or physical labor. I only comment on this because no one I talk to can name anything he got done when he had been in the legislature before. He came in fourth place, as an incumbent, the last time he ran. His supporters still claim that now-Sen. Edward Ablesser cheated, but had he beaten Ablesser, he still would have come in third. His troubles with his campaign are detailed here (Mr. T has more to say, since he actually lives in the district), but also that formerly Republican district is rapidly becoming Democratic. He can’t be too happy to run in a place like that.
NB - In their continuing quest to pretend that there is no election coming up, there is nothing in this morning’s Star about Bruce Wheeler, at least not in the on-line edition.
6 Comments
May 20th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Tedski - Are you really surprised about the inane, inept coverage in the Star? But it is up to bloggers as well as others outside the corporate hack media to provide the info to the masses. The Arizona Republic had a small item of note.
Matthew Benson
The Arizona Republic
May. 19, 2006 12:00 AM
One of two Democrats hoping to unseat Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer dropped out of the race Thursday.
Bruce Wheeler said it would have been an uphill battle to defeat an incumbent while campaigning under the limits of public campaign financing. He added that he also struggled with logistical issues as a Tucson resident.
“Trying to get my name recognition up in Maricopa County, which is about 58 percent of the vote, was a real challenge,” said Wheeler, a former Tucson mayor and state representative.
Wheeler’s exit clears the way for remaining Democratic candidate Israel Torres.
Brewer faces a primary election challenge from former Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
local/articles/0519wheelerquits0519.html
May 20th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
I gave that dude five bucks…hmmm.
May 22nd, 2006 at 9:29 am
As long as we are discussing losing candidates, how about campaign managers?
Saw a post on the Daily Kos site about Patty’s campaign manager, Frank Costanzo, being missing for the last month or so. Does anyone else have info on this? If it’s true, it wouldn’t seem to be a good indicator for the Weiss campaign.
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Gee - maybe Wheeler’s decision to drop out had something to do with the fact that the GOP would be able to run ads using tapes of the 911 calls made by Kristin Smith and highlighting his drinking and domestic issues.
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:18 pm
I really regret Wheeler leaving the race. His speech at the party meeting a couple of months ago was very good, I really felt that he had more than a desire to serve, he actually had a plan for what he would do if he got elected.
It does clear the deck for Torres though, hopefully he will be able to mount a credible challenge to Jan Brewer (and we do have a wildcard that could affect that race– it remains to be seen how many voters get turned away at the polls on primary day (Sept. 12) in accordance with Brewer’s rules, but they are her rules and if a lot of people, who may for example have moved since they registered to vote are turned away during the primary and we can get them to vote in the general, they may be angry enough to take it out in that race. This is the kind of ‘wildcard’ that is more likely to be a zero than a jackpot, but it’s a complete unknown at this point so it’s worth taking the time to remind everyone ahead of the primary that the new voter I.D. requirements were written according to Jan Brewer’s interpretation.
May 22nd, 2006 at 7:46 pm
It is my understanding that no one gets turned away. If you don’t have proper ID you vote a provisional ballot and then you have a few days to go down and provide ID to the Recorder. Now, you may not like that system but you should not misrepresent the facts.
There have already been a few elections with the new rules in place. According to the information that I read, in the Pima County election on May 16th about 150 ballots were provisional because of ID requirement. Certainly an inconvenience for those involved but not a huge percentage of the 120,821 people who voted.
Go Jan!
Leave a Reply