Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Some sights and sounds from the Democratic Party meeting in Kingman yesterday:

• Ed Espinoza from the Democratic National Committee came to address the group. I know Espinoza from his time as President of the Young Democrats of California, and some readers may remember him from his Mr. Super blog, where he anonymously chronicled his life as a superdelegate. Whenever the DNC sends a staffer out to a meeting, we are supposed to interpret this as how seriously the DNC takes us. I don’t know about that, but Espinoza landing in Phoenix and driving out to Kingman certainly demonstrates a personal commitment.

  Espinoza gave the news that Phoenix has made the initial cut to be a host for the 2012 Democratic National Convention. This is more a list of which cities qualify to submit bids more than anything else, which roughly coincides with what cities have NBA arenas (Since the 1940, every Democratic convention site but three has been one that also hosted an NBA franchise.) However, I’ve been told that folks at the DNC and in the White House are very interested in having Phoenix host the Democratic convention.

• Statewide candidates that made their presence known: US Senate candidates Rodney Glassman and Rudy García, Secretary of State candidate Chris Deschene, Attorney General candidate Felecia Rotellini and Corporation Commission Candidate Jorge García. Probable Attorney General candidate Vince Rabago announced that he was stepping down from his Vice-Chair position, which should end speculation that he isn’t going to run. Rudy García gave a stemwinding speech before the Hispanic caucus that reminded one of something Corky Gonzales would have given in his prime, but it made me wonder how well he’d do in front of a different audience not primed for so many references to Orgullo. Jorge García didn’t speak at either of the caucus meetings I attended, but I saw him roaming the hallways talking to committee members. Glassman has tightened up his message as of late, and even deftly handled a possible gotcha thrown his way by Rudy García. Glassman, by the way, had a crew of folks sporting his t-shirts working the place.
• Interesting resignation news came from Amanda Simpson. Simpson is resigning her position on the State Committee to move to Washington. She has gotten an appointment with the United States Department of Commerce, making her the first transgender to get a presidential appointment. Simpson also made history back in 2004 when she was the first transgender to run for office in Arizona. She lost that race in an overwelmingly Republican district, but 31,111 people looked beyond her “status” and voted for her, outpolling the other Democrat in the race.
• A slight violation of my pledge to not write about District 28 (it’s tangential!): the committee replaced Vice-Chair Mohur Sidhwa (who resigned to run for state house) with Sharon Covey of Sierra Vista. Rabago announced his resignation, Vice-Chair Matt Capalby announced he’s stepping down to work for Sam Wercinski. Ruben Gallego is making official that he is running for State House, so he will have to step aside as well. We’ll have some stuff to vote on in January, kids!
• Did I call this a “Quick Report”? I was deluded, obviously.
• A vote on a resolution on election integrity was put off for reasons I didn’t entirely understand, but it didn’t seem to raise a lot of hackles so they couldn’t have been that bad. A bylaws change on the number of meetings was rejected. I wouldn’t have had trouble with reducing the number of meetings a year to three, but there was also an implication from the report on the resolution that we should limit meetings to the “I-10/I-17 Corridor.” Wow, really? These should only be put in places that are a quick jaunt from Phoenix?
Written by: Tedski on 22 November 2009.

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