Thursday, March 6th, 2008...12:36 pm
What Ever Happened to THAT Guy?
I usually don’t write about the doings of basketball players, mostly because this is a political blog and I’m not all that keen on the NBA. But here was an interesting tidbit I ran across this morning: former Phoenix Suns star Kevin Johnson has announced he is running for mayor of Sacramento.
The thing that strikes me as interesting is round about 2000, he was looking at running for congress out of Phoenix. He was a celebrity guest at Democratic Party events and even hung around with the delegation at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles that year.
His plans were wrecked when it turned out that the redistricting commission chose to create a new rural district rather than a central Phoenix district that he would have been a natural fit for. There was a whole raft of Phoenix area Democrats ranging from Ken Cheuvront to Mary Rose Willcox whose congressional aspirations were bollixed as well. It was amusing to watch some of the jockeying that was going on for a seat that didn’t actually exist at that time but that all were convinced would be drawn to advantage them.
I just thought of something: this would mean Steve Lynn’s fault that Rick Renzi is in congress over Johnson, right?
Shortly after the new congressional map was announced, Johnson dropped out of the local political scene. This meant I couldn’t stand next to Johnson at party events anymore to show people that I was, in fact, taller than him.
8 Comments
March 6th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
KJ will get clobbered. There is that old ’showered with an underage girl’ incident that is just perfect for YouTube campaign fodder.
And what about this guy:
http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/drinking-libera.html
you gonna show up and show him who the smartest Polish-Mexican in Tucson is???
March 7th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Ah, the fun and pageantry of redistricting.
It all kinda highlights the need for reform, don’t you think?
We think that we could get 4 out of 10 (when we have 10) competitive congressional districts and 11 out of 30 competitive legislative districts. (Right now we have 1 out 8 and 4 out of 30.)
All of this AFTER we create minority-majority districts.
Plus, we can reduce the conflict of interest in the process.
We have 30% of our needed signatures, and we are going strong.
Please check out the web site and make a contribution.
March 7th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Someone better tell KJ that ingrown hairs, hangnails, and other debilitating ailments can’t keep him sidelined in THIS arena.
March 7th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I see KJ winning this, but I also agree with Adam. Let’s hope for the people of Sacramento he doesn’t get a blister.
March 8th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Ken Clark:
By my count, there are two competitive house districts (the first and the eighth) based purely on party registration.
Nut you have a point. Competitive balance was clearly stated as a criterion that the redistricting commission was responsible for including in their map, and they clearly chose to ignore that responsibility.
I believe that since the original law states that this is a critical component of their duties, the better strategy is to make sure that in 2010 when we pick people for the next commission we make sure that the people we pick (and the parties have some say on that) understand their charge regarding partisan competitive balance, and that they take that charge seriously.
March 8th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I meant, “BUT” you have a point. Unfortunately there is no way to edit a comment for typos.
There is nothing ‘nutty’ about understanding how important competitive redistricting balance is.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:30 am
You know, I feel bad for implying that KJ was soft back in the day. He was the cornerstone of a very good Phoenix Suns team back when they were the only game in town. And his tireless efforts to educate Arizona’s youth on the importance of water conservation are commendable.
March 9th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
you should be pleased to know you’re #1 for googles of
phoenix blog rum
phoenix blog romanism
alas #2 for phoenix blog rebellion
(i lost my bookmarks and had to find you again, thanks for great insight into the local scene)
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