Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Saturday I, and I’m assuming other members of the State Committee, recieved my first communication from David Waid. It was a letter detailing his accomplishments as chair including an impressive fundraising effort (four times as much as the Republican Party) and an increase in vote by mail applications by 30%.

I was suprised to get a call last night from a Waid supporter, they are not taking this race lightly.

I haven’t heard much from Randy Camacho supporters since the Pima County convention. Perhaps they believe that they have enough votes from out of groups like the Sonora Progressives (who have not officially endorsed, but many of their members are Camacho fans), but a little reaching out beyond this base will probably be necessary.

There is dissatisfaction out there from long time party activists, even those that don’t identify with leftish part of the party, with Waid and some of his staffing decisions, these folks don’t seem to be ready to jump yet. I don’t think they will without a bit more convincing from Camacho supporters.

On the other side: the Republicans are partying like it’s 1999.

Anyone remember the 1999 Democratic State Chair’s race? Incumbent Mark Fleischer created all sorts of difficulties for some party pooh bahs, so they united in opposition to him. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t agree on a cadidate, and sent letters endorsing all three of Fleischer’s opponents. This bizarre strategy didn’t work for the Whigs in 1836, and it just served to make many activists think Fleischer’s opponents didn’t have their act together. Fleischer won on the first ballot, and fired the executive director who was popular with many of his opponents. Then the cardinals shut off the fundraising spigot.

Nothing quite so strange has gone on with the Republicans yet (we still have a couple of days though), but there has been one parallel: some big time fund raisers have said that if there is a Randy Pullen victory, they will no longer donate to the Republican party. The same threat was made in ‘99 in case of a Fleischer win, but I don’t recall it making the papers. As it did on our side in ‘99, this sort of strong arming will no doubt turn off some activists.

A lot of talk out on these internets about whether Pullen or Lisa James is the more “pure” Republican. The assumption of many people is that Pullen’s association with the anti-immigrant movement and his friendliness with some conservative activists means he is more conservative. I’d been hearing from some grumblers that Pullen only recently adopted these positions to move up in Republican politics, but I hadn’t actually seen any evidence of this.

Well, over at Politico Mafioso, they have revealed that Pullen’s wife was a donor to WISH List. WISH list stands for “Women in the Senate and House,” and it is a paler, less effective Republican version of EMILY’s list. WISH list, like EMILY’s list, gives to pro-choice women Republican candidates. You’d think with all those wealthy pro-choice Republicans and so few candidates to give to that they’d do better, natch. James’s supporters are trying to get this one out now hoping it will make some of Pullen’s social conservative base jump to their side.

Polling shows that most Arizonans are pro-choice, heaven forbid the Republicans elect a chairman that knows someone that might have at one time another been pro-choice.