Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Gotta love that anonymity thing...

...doesn't help with the whole credibility thing, though.

I was perusing the website of the AZ Secretary of State, checking to see which candidates have started committees for next year (LD9's Republicans are going to have cattle call primaries for its legislative seats to deal with next year, and Barry Wong, a 2008 Rep nominee for Corporation Commission, is running for ACC again) when I came across a couple of interesting committees.

They're found under the "all other" category.

Filer ID 201000188, Citizens for Dean Martin for Governor, a $500 threshold committee.

Filer ID 201000186, Citizens Advocating Pragmatism, a $500 threshold committee.

Filer ID 201000193, Recall Garielle [sic] Giffords, a $500 threshold committee.


What does each of those committees have in common?

No listing of Chair or Treasurer.


However, their anonymity isn't complete - the Dean Martin committee lists a contact email of rbutterfield@cox.net and the Pragmatism committee lists gregory.m.wagner@gmail.com.

The Recall Giffords committee, while they are rather poor spellers, do a better job at anonymity - their email addy is recgiffords@hotmail.com.

Let's be clear - no listing of chair and treasurer on the SOS's website isn't necessarily illegal, as some of the other committees are similarly shown on the website.

It is interesting, however, since two of the committees were formed to directly support or oppose specific candidates.

Part of politics is standing up and being heard.

Anonymity *is* legal (even protected, under the First Amendment to the Constitution), but it isn't something that enhances the anonymous one's credibility.


Anyway, time to join Harry Mitchell's telephone town hall...

5 comments:

Eli Blake said...

The internet has taken the whole 'anonymous' smear thing to a whole new level.

Plus, there is also the case in Missouri that involved the woman faking a name on myspace to induce a teenager to hang herself.

I support the first amendment too, but I also believe that there is ample precedent for requiring that people who contribute to or work for political causes should be identified on the public record.

It's not an infringement of free speech to require a valid and verifiable signature.

Zelph said...

Why does Trent Franks continue to refuse to produce the long-form of his actual birth certificate? Could it be that he's an undocumented alien? Check out his eyes sometime. Definitely an alien/human hybrid. He also exhibits the mental defectiveness typical of these failed experiments.

Craig said...

Eli - I should have been clearer in my post (in my defense, I was trying to rush to complete it before the start of the Mitchell town hall) - the committee paperwork may have been filled out completely, with a chair and treasurer listed, but the AZSOS's office might not have put the same on its website.

Even though they did so for most other committee, formed both before and after those particular ones.

I think the "Recall Giffords" thing is from some Tucson teabaggers who simply don't like the fact that she's a, you know, Democrat. It's one of the reasons that I've never gotten on board with the various efforts to recall McCain and/or Kyl just because they're Republicans.

There are valid reasons to recall someone, but partisan affiliation alone isn't one of them.

Zelph - Franks is a loon in a district that is "safe Republican" until at least 2012, when redistricting sets in. He could use his own birth certificate as TP while suing President Obama for his, and it won't make any difference.

Zelph said...

On what planet does Trent Franks spend most of his time? Inquiring minds want to know.

Actually goofballs like Franks are a blessing. The make Republicans look like fools.

Eli Blake said...

craig--

Yeah, they don't like any Democrat.

I've always thought that recalling a congressman or congresswoman was really an exercise in futility-- they are up for election every two years anyway, you'd think that all the time, energy and effort that someone would put into a recall would be better spent in a more positive way working to promote a viable candidate to run against them in the scheduled biennial election.

But you know, for some of these morons spending state money on a pointless election is no object.