Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Specialist Jesse Latas, whose service in Iraq and struggle with leukemia inspired his father Jeff’s entry into politics, has died at the age of 22.
Prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola:
Teach us, good Lord,
to serve You as You deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not […]

When I got word about Ann Kirkpatrick’s official entry into the CD 1 Derby, I realized that I hadn’t heard much about the goings on in the district, which, by the way, is the size of Pennsylvania.
(There is some rule out there that says that any mention of CD 1 has to include a citation […]

Well, the new rumor being circulated is that Tim Bee is so intimidated by the piles of cash that Gabrielle Giffords has raised that he is reconsidering the race and may instead run for County Supervisor.
I don’t buy it. The field has been cleared for him, and all indications are that this will be a […]

This picture ran in this morning’s Star. It features Justice Sandra Day O’Connor speaking to two people at the National Governor’s Association meeting. The caption identifies O’Connor and mentions the topics that she spoke about at the meeting. The caption fails to identify the women she is talking to, one of whom looks like Jennifer […]

The Arizona Capitol Times is reporting that Ann Kirkpatrick has resigned her legislative seat and has announced that she is running against embattled Rep. Rick Renzi.
Kirkpatrick’s replacement, as per state law, will be chosen by the Coconino County Board of Supervisors and must be a Democrat.
Her starting the race this early is an indication that despite […]

The latest rumblings are that Randy Graf, late of the Congressional District 8 race, is pondering a challenge to Ray Carroll. Carroll is regarded as moderate and definitely not Graf’s sort of Republican.
In the 2006 Republican congressional primary, Graf managed 43.0% in the precincts that make up Carroll’s district 4 (which is entirely in CD […]

Candidate for State Democratic Party Chairman Don Bivens has spent the day meeting with local Democratic Party muckety mucks. I count this as a healthy sign. One weakness I saw with David Waid’s chairmanship was despite his administrative skills, he had an uneasy relationship with party activists.
The smart money says that Bivens is the prohibitive […]

I didn’t post this weekend…recovering from Beckham hype…isn’t he so dreamy?
Over the last couple of weeks, I have had several conversations that started this way:
“Don’t use this on your blog, but…”
Don’t use this on your blog? What good does that do me?
I had one conversation like this months ago, so I kept my mouth shut. […]

After the various fundraising scandals that sank many Republican political careers (our own J. D. Hayworth may have been torpedoed, in part, by his association with Jack Abramoff), the sick bastard inside of me worried that the Republicans would learn from these mistakes and not affiliate themselves with some of the more unsavory characters that […]

So, one of our state’s many public policy advocacy organizations commissioned a poll. It wasn’t supposed to be on electoral politics, but included questions about some of our state’s politicians as a way to correlate the data.
When checking the crosstabs, they found some interesting numbers.
All Voters:
John McCain - Total Positive 41%, Total Negative 37%
Janet Napolitano […]

I relent.
My friend Sisto Abeyta is running for President of the Young Democrats of America. He’s been unsubtly asking me “where is the love?” since, unlike many of his supporters, I haven’t put him in my MySpace “Top Friends.” Who is he suggesting I bump off for him? Lalo Guerrero? The Furious Truckstop Waitresses? Amy […]

I’ve written before about the relative anonymity of our legislators. My brother encountered this himself the other night while at Plush. He related the dialogue on his MySpace page:
Friend of a Friend: Hey…you got one of them shirts…a…what’s it called…
Me: Guayabera.
FoaF: Yeah…guay-a-ber-a…that’s it. Growing up I thought they were called “Barber Shirts” because all the […]

Russell Pearce is, once again, mulling a challenge against Jeff Flake. Some of you may remember that he publicly toyed with doing this (and a race for governor) in the past. This time though, he is term-limited and has to go up or out. This circumstance coupled with Flake’s more high profile endorsement of pro-immigration […]

Randy Pullen’s has spent the last few months claiming that the Republican party has registered thousands of new voters. I’m assuming that the majority of these voters are Republicans, or it would defeat the purpose of the whole enterprise, wouldn’t it?
So, then the question becomes, where the heck are these folks hiding?
Take a look at what has happened to […]

One of the possible traps that we political activists fall into is seeing every action of others through the lenses of our own ideology. It can lead us into giving folks political motives where none exist, basically because we think everyone must believe just as we do.
We have to remember sometimes that most people, even those […]

Jim Gilmore dropped out of the Presidential race yesterday, did you notice? A few months back, former Virginia Governor Mark Warner dropped out as well. This means that both Virginians in the current race are out.
Four of the first five presidents were Virginians, but since then, not so much. Despite its large size (12th biggest), […]

Even though I don’t fit into any known “youth” category any longer, I still recieve missives from the various youth arms of the Democratic Party. I ran across this one from the College Democrats of America:
Dear College Democrat,
It is with great pleasure that I announce the one and only Senator Hillary Clinton will be joining […]

I knew it wouldn’t take long, our friends on the other side have been pointing to the resignation of David Waid as some sort of sign that the Democratic Party is totally dysfunctional. Yep…the party is on the verge of imploding and going the way of the Anti-Masons in the 1830’s.
I guess they got tired […]

It looks as though Bob Walkup won’t have much of a race this year. The Democrats have largely abandoned the field, leaving Walkup to run against Green Party candidate Dave Croteau. I like what I’ve heard from Croteau, and I might even vote for him. As it looks right now, however, I can’t think of […]

Over at Radar, they are reporting that one of John McCain’s frustrations with the aides he fired was with their choice of attire for him. Specifically, he didn’t like the, his words, “gay sweaters” they made him wear to make him look younger.
To quote the gay friend who tipped me off to this one, “Gay sweater? […]