Sunday, June 24, 2012

The gloves are coming off: Primary Edition

As the Arizona weather heats up so are some of the primary campaigns, and it's not just between candidates.

...The AZGOP succeeded in knocking (subscription required) some Libertarian candidates off of the ballot in races that are expected to be close, figuring that any votes would have gone to the Libertarian candidates will now go to the Republican candidates in the affected races.  The Libertarian Party is most assuredly not amused.  Expect more moves, but for now, they've turned around and upgraded their outreach efforts to non-affiliated voters, opening up their August primary to all voters who aren't otherwise registered in a ballot-eligible party. 

...A former leader of the AZGOP is calling for the head of the current communications director of the AZGOP because he suggested that there it may be best for the Republican Party to consider a policy toward immigrants that is milder than "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out."  It's not a primary campaign issue per se, but an internal party rift could impact the results of August's primaries (and there are more than a few on the R ballot)

...Freshman GOP Congressmen David Schweikert and Ben Quayle are running against each other in CD6, a safe R district that encompasses north Scottsdale and other areas of northeastern Maricopa County.  They've turned what had been a campaign of intermittent sniping from the two camps into withering artillery barrages. 

The latest, from the Arizona Capitol Times, written by Jeremy Duda -

A long-anticipated shoe dropped in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, escalating the intraparty battle between U.S. Reps. Ben Quayle and David Schweikert.

After Quayle dubbed his opponent “Dishonest Dave” and accused him of distorting Quayle’s position on President Barack Obama’s recently announced deportation policy, Schweikert fired back by dredging up the scandal that roiled Quayle’s campaign in 2010.


...In the GOP primary to nominate a candidate to fill the US Senate seat currently filled by the soon-to-be retired Jon Kyl, Congressman Jeff Flake and businessman Wil Cardon are the leading candidates.  Flake is considered to be the presumptive front-runner but Cardon is well- (and self-) funded.  Both candidates have access to large amounts of money and have turned the campaign into a raft of "I'm more conservative than thou" TV spots.

...In CD9, the new Congressional District that is based on the Phoenix area, the race for the Democratic nomination has seen the uncovering of a number of interesting tidbits about candidate Andrei Cherny and his past campaigns. 

The latest: videos of him speaking to a tea party group during his 2010 run for Arizona State Treasurer. 

In the videos, it appears that Cherny caters his message, his positions on issues, to suit his audience.

Not the best publicity, coming ~five weeks before early ballots hit mail boxes across the district, but the Cherny campaign may have reached the point where any publicity is good publicity.  There's a strong rumor going around that more than one poll has shown Cherny with support in the single digits.  The measures of his name recognition among Democratic voters are higher, but still lags behind the other candidates in the primary.

To be sure, the campaign isn't over.  Cherny has raised the most money, and has the cash to run a ton of TV spots and to fill mail boxes across the district with his literature.  However, that won't do more than raise his name recognition unless he goes very negative in an attempt to reduce the support for his two opponents, David Schapira and Kyrsten Sinema, who are considerably better known than Cherny.

Look for "elevated mud level" in CD9's air quality reports over the next couple of months; it's going to start flying.


Later...

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