Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

I recieved a nice note from Gene Chewning:

Hola Señor Tedski,

Greetings, nice play on words with my name. I don’t believe that that have been done since I was a kid in school. Yes, I have filed with the FEC but not yet financially as this is my first quarter. I am honored to have made your blog. We will be having some fun this election. I actually wish to thank you for your involvement because the real danger to our country is
not from those on the right or the left but from those who do not care enough to check out the issues or the candidates.

Wishing you God’s best.

Gene Chewning

Chewning seems to be a nice enough guy. That is not saying that I think he should win, or even that he has a chance of doing so. Just saying he seems to be a gracious guy.

Since he is a decent guy, I’ll save my fire here for the people who seem to believe they are acting on his behalf.

One poster on here alleged that Chewning would have the support of former County Supervisor Dan Eckstrom. If true, this would be a pretty devastating political and personal blow to Raúl Grijalva. The trouble is, it makes little sense politically. Why would Eckstrom sever a relationship that he has built for over thirty years, one that has been helpful to Eckstrom even in his current “civilian” work trying to get private and public investment into the South Side, to throw in behind a guy that has little likelyhood to win? The relationship between the two of them is complicated, sometimes even rocky, but it is hard to imagine it getting bad enough for Eckstrom to do something like this.

I went ahead and called Eckstrom. I’ve known him and his brother for years, and my mother went to high school with the two of them. Eckstrom is happy that y’all are still thinking about him, but no dice on any endorsement. He has a great deal of respect for Chewning as a pastor, and has worked with him, but he’s got a solid relationship to Grijalva, who he refered to as “my congressman.”

Funny thing about it, I am always hearing from Republicans about how Eckstrom is corrupt and a pox on Southern Arizona politics, now they want to claim he’s endorsing their candidates. Go figure.

Next the folks over at Arizona Watchtower are claiming that we Pima County Democrats are in a “frenzy” over the Chewning candidacy. So, this blog writes a single entry about Chewning over the past two and a half years and that indicates the entire party is in a “frenzy”? Must be from the same dictionary that defines Ron Drake’s campaign as “phenomenal.”

The entire Republican establishment from George Bush on down is in a frenzy (by Watchtower standards) over the rental of a bowling alley. That’s right. You guys may have seen allegations on here of irregularities in Grijalva’s FEC reports. These allegations are expanded on in an entry on Arizona Watchtower. Here is what it boils down to: Grijalva’s campaign spent $4500 on rental of Bedroxx, a bowling alley on the Northwest side. This seems “irregular” to these guys. Well, the campaign rented the entire facility for half a day. That plus costs for food, and soon you are talking about real money. Had the campaign been charged less, they would have been in trouble for an in-kind contribution.

By the way, many congressmen make their big home town fundraiser a golf tournament. Grijalva doesn’t golf (which I consider a plus), and wanted an activity that an entire family could participate in. I can’t imagine that a golf tournament would be cheaper.

The Watchtower also takes issue with the organizer of the tournament, Art Chapa. Chapa is a local attorney, who, in their words, “gets a lot of his money from the public trough.” They go on to trash Chapa for recieving $300,000 from Pima County for a lobbying contract. I hate to let facts get in the way here, but that $300,000 is actually split between Chapa’s law firm and the firm of Mike Racy, a Republican. By the way, Rossi’s firm took over the duties from the firm of local Republican pooh bah John Munger.

So, it’s okay for Racy and Munger to make all this money from a lobbying contract, but when Chapa, a Democrat, does, it’s corruption? And these guys are jumping on me for being partisan?