Friday, March 16th, 2007...5:49 pm
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The Arizona Democratic Party has hired a new executive director: Maria Weeg. Weeg’s previous job was as executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party.
You can take a look at an article from New West announcing her departure from the Idaho Democrats, or this interview with her from the Boise Weekly. See, if that paper had been more like the Tucson Weekly, she would have had to talk about which Screaming Trees and Paul Revere and the Raiders albums she owns.
2 Comments
March 16th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
I think it’s a great choice. And I say that despite the fact that the Democrats did not win a single statewide office in Idaho in 2006, lost both congressional districts and only have a few members of the state legislature.
Idaho is a deep red state, the second most Republican in the nation (some would argue the first), and is demographically not that unlike the GOP base in Arizona– a combination of mostly rural LDS voters and relatively affluent newcomers. Underlying this is the hard-core and nutty right (the black-helicopter crowd that used to love Helen Chenowyth.)
Sort of like Arizona would be if you took away all the Democratic parts of the state and left the Republican areas (the lone Democratic area of Idaho, around Sun Valley, is pretty small– that plus the university town of Moscow might be like if you kept Flagstaff).
Against this backdrop, Democrats in Idaho came darn close to winning a congressional seat (though admittedly against a candidate, Bill Sali, who might make the black helicopter folks quit pining for Chenowyth), and– here is the real surprise– being very competitive in the Governor’s race, against a popular GOP Congressman.
So yeah, I think someone who has had some success in Idaho is a great choice to help us slice into the ‘red core’ of Arizona, and maybe start peeling away some votes the GOP usually takes for granted.
March 17th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Plus she’s kinda cute if you ask me.
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