The answer is: no, I didn’t.

I should know more about him. The former Queen Creek resident came close to being our state’s executive, narrowly missing out by a scant 938,922 votes.

I say “former” because he’s spent the last several months homeless in Ukraine after falling victim to an internet dating scam.

The New Times reports that Dolego is on his way back to Arizona.

With close to 200,000 ballots still left to be counted, it is premature to make an announcement concerning the outcome of the election. This has been and remains a close race, and we feel that all Arizonans who voted deserve to have their decision known before we announce victory or concede.

As Mo Udall used to say, goomwah. Neither is going to actually be involved in arguing the case. Brewer ain’t a lawyer, right? Horne may be running for Attorney General, but that gives him as much standing as I do. His office is 0 and 3 in court this year, so if he wants the state to win, he may want to butt out. Someone told me that Mine Inspector Joe Hart is going to be making the trip too. They were kidding about that one, right? Does the court need a symposium in how to neglect mine safety?

(Maybe we can leave our Hart in San Francisco? Sorry, too easy.)

If this attempt to get election eve free media were any more naked, it would qualify for a Playboy centerfold. This is obviously a campaign trip rather than official duties, so hopefully the press that will inevitably follow them will feel some obligation to get reaction from their opponents.

Politicians pull stunts like this because it is their nature and what we pay them for. The media, however, is under no obligation to reward them for crassness.

Add to that the fact that Coughlin achieved his aim: he arranged for a re-airing of twenty year old rumors and introduced them to voters that never heard them the first time around. The toothpaste is out of the tube, a smart political operator like Coughlin knew exactly what he was doing here. Remember that he worked on Fife Symington’s campaign back in 1990, and there was a similar low level whispering campaign in that race. Coughlin may not have been behind that, but don’t think he didn’t learn any lessons from it now that he is once again faced with a newly close race against Goddard.

Most of us have been taught to forgive when our neighbors ask for it, but some apologies put a real strain on that impulse.

Cherny also had a press conference last week with former franchisees who Ducey made a few too many promises to, the video of that is available on his website.

So your question is: what made this guy think, with all of these obvious problems with his business and taxes, that he could run a statewide race and not have all of this dregded up? Shouldn’t some Republican pooh-bah have had a sit down with him and told him this wasn’t a great idea?

Well, yeah, except it was the Republican pooh-bahs that got him into this race. That’s right: despite all of his problems, Ducey was asked to run.

Flash back to the beginning of the year. Cherny had an impressive resume and had already accumulated quite a war chest and no primary opposition, while the Republican primary looked like a mollycoddle.The field consisted of a trio of long time legislators and there were doubts that they could compete in a general election against a well financed Democrat. So, there was a move on the part of the mahouts to find someone who could go toe to toe with Cherny on the money front, even better if that person was someone who could finance their own campaign.

That effort, which even included Jon Kyl according to the Capitol Times, resulted in Doug Ducey. The doubts about Ducey’s fitness for the office were already there and easy to find with a bit of digging, but it didn’t seem to matter.

And why should it have? I mean, Dean Martin beat the very capable Rano Singh by nearly 200,000 votes despite doubts about his candidacy, and David Petersen beat long time legislator Ruth Solomon before being unable to complete his term due to foreseeable shenanigans in his office.

So, it looks like the Republican establishment thinks that they can put anyone up before voters, especially in these relatively low profile statewide constitutional offices. They’ll put anyone up, and they can count on the civil leadership of this state to shrug and not put up a peep. Exhibit A: The Republic endorsed Ducey despite these glaring problems.

This time, they actually have a Democrat with the resources to point up the glaring inadequacies of the candidate. Let’s see if it works this time.