Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Word has leaked out to this intrepid blogger that the search for a new executive director for the Arizona Democratic party has been winnowed (sort of, I’ll get to that later) to two candidates: former Raúl Grijalva staffer Luís Heredia and current acting executive director Devin Rankin.
One of the reasons for this drawn out process is that it was supposed to keep the decision of who the executive director is from being part of the coming food fight between Terry Goddard and Jim Pederson. Already I had one person contact me concerned that Heredia was too close to Goddard, and Rankin too close to Pederson. I think that any worries about loyalties to the two possible gubernatorial candidates are a bit exagerated: Heredia is seen more as a Grijalva person than a Goddard person after his years working in his Yuma office, and Rankin worked a very abbreviated stint with Pederson’s senate campaign before leaving for a job with the state party. People close to the process have pointed out that both Rankin and Heredia got support on the committee from people loyal to both sides.
One person more familiar about the process told me that it is possible that another candidate could arise. The winnowing process only involved candidates who were interviewed, which would exclude candidates that applied from other states. My source said that he thought this was unlikely, given that both Organizing for America and the White House are still hiring and many Democratic politicos in other states are waiting for those jobs.
New rumor I’ve heard: tomorrow former Surgeon General Richard Carmona will announce his candidacy against Raúl Grijalva.
Okay, sounds like a fun rumor, but I have a bit of trouble buying it. Carmona is registered to vote in the Tanque Verde area (miles from CD 7) and registered as an independent. Neither of these are insurmountable barriers: he doesn’t have to actually live in CD 7 and has the time to move in any case, and changing his voter registration to whichever party he hopes to run in would take a couple of minutes. He’s got allies in both parties, so either one is plausible. Heck, he could actually run as an independent, I suppose.
I’m having trouble with his reported selection of opponent. How exactly does he win that race? Does he run as a Democrat and try to knock the rather safe Grijalva out in a primary or run a suicide mission against him in the general election as a Republican? If I were a man in Carmona’s position, I would find neither of these particularly appetizing.
Now, I could see him running against Gabrielle Giffords. I think the last election should have shown Republicans that Giffords is a much stronger opponent and much more popular than they give her credit for. But, the district is still marginally Republican, and I could see that Carmona could be convinced (or that he could convince himself), with his stature, resume and political moderation, that he’s the guy that could take her out. I’m not saying he would, just saying someone could make a good case to him that he could.
As I said, the rumor I heard was sketchy on the details. We’ll see tomorrow how poorly my radar is working.
From the Attorney General’s office:
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office today announced that its hand count of the ballots cast in the May 2006 Pima County Special Election affirmed the results of the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) election of 2006.
The RTA election consisted of two separate questions. The first asked voters to indicate yes or no in response to the question, “Do you approve the regional transportation plan for Pima County?” The official election canvass recorded a total of 119,818 votes cast in response to this question. Of those, 71,948 (or 60.05%) were “yes” votes and 47,870 (39.95%) were “no” votes. The examination of the ballots found a total of 119,262 votes cast in response to this question. Of those, 71,626 (60.06%) were “yes” votes and 47,636 (39.94%) were “no” votes.
(Continued)
Arlen Specter has been dropping big hints that he will filibuster Barack Obama’s nominee for the Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn Johnsen.
I suppose that this is his perogotive as a Senator, but if he filibusters Phillip Michael Thomas, there will be hell to pay.
According to the Arizona Capitol Times, Chris Simcox will be announcing that his candidacy against John McCain tomorrow.
Once again, we’ll get to hear how McCain is some sort of leftist sell-out, a charge easilly disputed by a quick perusal of his record. People can delude themselves into all sorts of things, ‘specially when they want to be in public office.
Simcox has already hired a campaign manager and has promised that he can raise between $10 and $15 million. He may want to get started on that: McCain has $3.6 million in cash on hand, which is low until you consider that he hasn’t gone full bore on the fundraising yet.
Simcox also has on his team a fellow named Eric Johnson, who I am assured is not the very respected Austin-based guitarist. Johnson worked on Don Goldwater’s bid for governor in 2006. We’ll see if Johnson learned anything from that campaign: Goldwater lost a primary on a similar “tough on immigration” platform against a much lesser known opponent than McCain.
A bit from his web page:
If you are tired of elitist, self-funded career politicians, maybe it’s time to hire a representative who will work to actually represent the people of Arizona that he serves.
A cruel thrust. To be fair to McCain, he isn’t “self-funded.” That’s his wife’s money.
There’s a lot of fun I can have with his web page over the next few days. Give me some time. But one last thing: is it just me or does the “Tough on Border Security” pic remind you of Travis Junior?
Arizona 8th is reporting that the Republicans have a candidate in CD 7 next year. I mean, besides Joe Sweeney:
If people voted based on looks then 2010 might be a good year for Republicans in CD 7. We hear the possible candidate is smart as well.
So, the authors of Arizona 8th are recognizing that a woman can be nice looking and smart. This is what passes for feminism in the Republican blogosphere.
I’m not going to comment on her looks. She obviously isn’t my type since she’s, you know, Republican. But her looks are so paramount to the Arizona 8th people that they run her picture but don’t bother to give her name. There is not yet a filing with the FEC (although, note to Gene Chewning: your committee is still open). The only clue is that the picture bears the file name “Ruth.”
What does this woman have to hide…hmmm?
It appears that Richard Fimbres has drawn a Republican challenger: Judith Gomez.
There is one very important thing to remember when considering her chances of winning: she doesn’t have to win on in Ward Five. Remember that general elections are fought city wide, with only primaries determined by ward. Gomez could spend the entire campaign drumming up Republican turnout on the East Side and get only negligible votes in the ward she is supposed to represent and still pull it off. Call this the Roy Laos rule.
Gomez has been registered to vote since 2003, but hasn’t voted in either a city or state election since 2006. I know that many of my more cynical Democratic friends will jump on this as a disqualification. But come on, that last presidential election was dull and lacked compelling candidates. I can totally see how someone would forget to vote.
Check out Blog for Arizona for the latest in the Marana Town Council race. A group called People for an Independent Marana has let loose with a hit piece on Kelle Maslyn. David Safier has the details.
Irony watch: there have been complaints that Maslyn’s support from the County Democratic Party somehow sullies Marana’s otherwise clean, spotless politics. To fight this, they have a shady group run a hit piece against her? How exactly does this work?
UPDATE: I just recieved a copy of the mailer. There are some formatting issues that I’ll have to resolve before posting, but I’ll have it up for y’all later. Big screaming letters: “WHY are TUCSON Special Interests trying to BUY a seat for Kelle Maslyn in MARANA?” It would be an easier message to swallow if People for an Independent Marana actually revealed who is funding them. Doesn’t seem to be too much to ask if the complaint is about who is funding Maslyn. At least you know who is buttering Maslyn’s bread. These guys, who knows? Could be Tucsonans, a cadre of developers from Scottsdale or the Trilateral Commission for all we know.
Congratulations to Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin on winning the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. Their work on a series on Joe Arpaio for the East Valley Tribune was cited by the Pulitzer committee.
Here is Tribune publisher Julie Moreno:
It’s just an incredible testament to the work that was done on that story and it’s nice to see our journalism being recognized in such a prestigious way. It does speak to the commitment we have to serving the readers in our community with quality journalism.
Nice sentiment. But, it has to be remembered that the Tribune was so proud of the work that Giblin was doing that both he and the editor that shepherded the story, Patti Epler, were laid off several months ago and no longer work for the paper. They both later founded the online publication, Arizona Guardian.
Barack Obama has written a letter to FIFA honcho Sepp Blatter supporting a bid to host the World Cup. Here is Obama quoted in Goal.com:
As a child, I played soccer on a dirt road in Jakarta, and the game brought the children of my neighborhood together. As a father, I saw that same spirit of unity alive on the fields and sidelines of my own daughters’ soccer games in Chicago.
The drawback to any discussion of Obama and soccer is that he is probably a Chicago Fire fan. The British press has been playing up that Obama is a fan of West Ham United. I don’t know if this is good, politically. Their jersey colors are blue and, um, “claret.” Is this the sort of image he wants to project?
By the way, Chicago boy Jonathan Spector plays for West Ham. Obama would know this, of course.
NB: Bit of trivia for you here only because Obama brought up playing soccer in Indonesia. Indonesia qualified for the World Cup only once, in 1938 when they were still known as the Dutch East Indies. They exited after one match when they were beaten by Hungary (then a soccer powerhouse) 6-0.
