Campaign and committees update

...Damn!  Stop paying attention to committee formations after the deadline for filing for August's primary election and you can miss some developments involving familiar names.  I know I did.


Perused the Maricopa County Recorder's list of candidates for offices that go directly to the November ballot, and a few names ring a bell.  Loudly.

- Terry Goddard, former AZ Attorney General and the Democratic nominee for governor in 2010, is running for a spot on the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD), better known as the governing board of the Central Arizona Project (CAP).  They oversee the delivery of Arizona's share of water from the Colorado River to central and southern Arizona.

- Also running for CAWCD:  Brett Mecum.  The scandal-plagued former executive director of the AZGOP (speeding tickets, stalking women, etc.) was last seen "helping" southern AZ's favorite bully, State Sen. Frank Antenori, run for Congress.  Apparently, that campaign crashed and burned didn't work out as well as Antenori hoped (OK, he got his butt kicked).

- Jean McGrath.  She is currently on the board, but she is waging a primary challenge against Max Wilson for the District 4 seat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.  Given that she has roughly 1/10 of the money for her campaign that Wilson has, maybe she's read the writing on the wall and set her sights a little lower.

- Because of the late date of the removal of Phillip Woolbright from the office of Arrowhead Justice of the Peace, the candidates to replace him have to run as write-ins.  There are currently six registered candidates - Debra Boehlke, Melanie Deforest, David Hickman, Francisco Meneses, Patrick Montgomery, and George Mothershed.

Don't know much about any of them, but there was a "Francisco Meneses Jr." who was a candidate for JP in the Maryvale Precinct who withdrew from that race after submitting his nominating petitions  Hmmm...

...Sasha Glassman, wife of 2010 Democratic nominee for US Senate Rodney Glassman, is running for a seat on the Madison Elementary SD.  OK - four candidates for four seats - she's going to win.

...Don Hawker, perhaps the one person in Arizona who can make the folks at the Center for Arizona Theocracy Policy seem reasonable on the right of women to control their own bodies (he blames everything that he considers "bad" in America, and that is a very long list, on his God's displeasure with the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision) is running for a seat on the board of the Tempe Union High School District.  He ran for the lege from Tempe in 2010, and got thumped in a Republican wave year.  Three seats, five candidates; he may find a way to come in sixth.

- In a quick update to a post I wrote on the lack of school board candidates, by Wednesday's filing deadline, 207 people had filed for 170 seats up for election.  However, that number means that many of the seats will be uncontested, or at least under-contested (i.e. - fewer than two candidates for each of the seats on the ballot).

For example...

...only two candidates filed for the three seats on the ballot for the Agua Fria SD board.

...only four candidates filed for the three seats on the ballot for the Mesa Unified board.  Meaning that there is a 3/4 chance that winger Jerry Walker will be given access to the futures of Mesa's schoolchildren.

Later...