Friday, December 15th, 2006...6:23 am
I Knew a Guy Once That Had a Cat Named Chairman
I spoke to a Republican activist up in Phoenix and he seemed to feel that Lisa James had some momentum in the chairmanship race. His take: despite whatever problems the activists have with the consultants and the hierarchy, Randy Pullen is being seen in some quarters as someone who is looking at the chairmanship as a stepping stone to something else rather than someone who wants to build the party. Also, the more pragmatic activists are wondering if the “RINO-Hunting” direction that Pullen’s supporters are promising is a winning strategy.
I have my doubts. The only hard evidence I have to go on (for obvious reasons, I have nothing resembling a hard-count of Republican State Committee voters) was the District 11 race up in Phoenix, which was seen by Pullen supporters as a proxy war between them and the Republican establishment. Rob Haney, a Pullen supporter, won that race overwhelmingly.
(Another upshot of that race: Haney has a great deal of control over his district’s proxies. Unlike in the Democratic party, Maricopa and Pima County district chairs can get away with carrying as many proxies as they wish at state meetings.)
I suppose it is possible that the state committee members in that District are an outlier, or that they resented the ham-fisted pressure from folks like John McCain and took it out on his candidate.
On the Democratic side, there still hasn’t been official word from David Waid about whether or not he will run again. Given this race is a less public affair, he can probably wait a couple of weeks to say either way. The talk is that Janet Napolitano’s operatives would like him to stay, but there is some grumbling about his leadership from Democratic Cardinals. Napolitano’s folks are definitely not fans of the two announced alternatives, Jeff Latas and Randy Camacho. There are other names being floated as alternatives, but far be it from me to engage in rumor and innuendo.
4 Comments
December 15th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Hi Ted. Latas is not running for AZ DEM party state chair. I have emails to the Sonoran PDA list to document that fact.
December 15th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Okay…news to me. Last conversation I had with him it sounded like a go.
December 15th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
yeah, the republic is saying it’s Camacho versus Osterloh.
December 16th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Go with Osterloh!
Leave a Reply