Fun with campaign finance reports...

Oh, the stuff that I dig into when I'm feeling bored diligent... :)

Notes:  Most information gathered from the last four finance reports of the cycle.  In addition, I didn't go through the reports of Democratic candidates.  Partly because I'm a partisan hack (like that's breaking news to any regular readers! LOL) and partly because most of the Democratic candidates financed their campaigns through Clean Elections, and CE candidates are actively discouraged from using their campaign funds for non-campaign purposes.  I checked a few, but their reports, as well as the reports of R candidates who utilized CE funding, were really boring.

Today, between basketball games and gift unwrappings, I was perusing some Maricopa County and State of Arizona campaign finance reports (political geek that I am), and learned that many candidates and PACs use their campaign funds "creatively".  Nothing that is necessarily illegal, but stuff that doesn't seem to have much to do with electing candidates.

From recent reports filed with the Maricopa County Recorder and the Secretary of State -

Associated Highway Patrolmen of Arizona PAC, 11/18/2010 - $1000 to the ALEC Scholarship Fund (page 51 of the linked .pdf), which pays for legislators to attend various ALEC functions.  The memo on the contribution was "Various Republican Candidates/Committees Contribution."  They can contribute to anyone they want to, but have they forgotten who leads the annual charges to underfund DPS and to mess with the public safety employees' pension fund?  It sure isn't the Democrats...

Arizona Dairymen PAC, 11/15/2010 - $500 to the ALEC Scholarship Fund.

Transportation Association (Legislative and Educational PAC), 9/15/2010 - $449.41 to SRP for "ALEC AZ Nite Dinner"

Apollo Group Inc. Organization for Legislative Leadership in Arizona, 10/14/2010 - $2500 directly to ALEC

Note: The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a somewhat shadowy* right-wing group dedicated to putting state legislators into contact with lobbyists and executives from its corporate sponsors.  The Scholarship Fund is intended to pay for member legislators to attend various ALEC functions.


* = shadowy because its membership is semi-secret (members can self-publicize their association with ALEC, but generally ALEC doesn't publish a complete list of its members, and it also keeps secret its contributors and the amounts contributed).

Other interesting entries include -

Frank Antenori, R for Senate in LD30, spent $104.90 on 11/3/2010 for a power strip for his laptop and a blue tooth headset.  The election was on *11/2.*  He's not the only candidate to use campaign funds for computers/electronics, but most were discreet enough to make the expenditures *before* the election.

Nancy Barto, R for Senate in LD7, spent $334.40 on 11/11/2010 for airfare, $246.34 for lodging on 11/13/2010 (and a $25 baggage fee on that date), and $175 on 9/25/2010 for a fee for a Wallbuilders conference in Texas.  Wallbuilders is an anti-choice/historical revisionist group based in Texas.

Chuck Gray, R Senator in LD19...well, actually, since Gray is retiring (for now, anyway) and didn't run this year, technically speaking nothing he spent from his campaign funds this year was intended to help him win an election, but let's not quibble over details. How about we just cover some of the highlights. 

He spent $265.43 on 10/28/2010 to renew a subscription to the Wall Street Journal.  Also, $194.04 from 10/1/2010 through 10/6/2010 on miscellaneous charges related to a trip to Boston, over $1500 on travel-related charges from 8/9/2010 through 9/13/2010.  Many, but not all, of the other things that he used his campaign funds for this year were also travel-related.

Jack Harper, R for House in LD4, spent $100 on 9/23/2010 on a two-year membership in ALEC.

John McComish, R for Senate in LD20, spent $130 on 8/13/2010 for a donation to Tempe Right To Life.

Steve Montenegro, R for House in LD12, spent $82 on 7/17/2010 to pay the fee for submitting a ballot proposition argument to the Arizona Secretary of State.

Russell Pearce, R for Senate in LD18, spent $551.17 on 11/5/2010 for "airfare and lodging" (no destination listed).

Michelle Reagan, R for Senate in LD8, spent $418.80 on 11/18/2010 for airfare to Colorado for a fellowship.  In August, she spent $675 on dues for the National Rifle Association and AZ Citizens Action for the Arts.   On 7/26/2010, she spent $86 out of campaign funds on a subscription to the Arizona Republic.

Bob Robson, R for House in LD20, spent $227.70 on 9/2/2010 on "newspaper subscription to Phoenix Newspapers (aka - the Arizona Republic).

Jim Weiers, R for House in LD10, spent $75 on 7/7/2010 to submit a ballot proposition argument to the Arizona Secretary of State.

Interesting stuff...interesting to political geeks.  :))
 

Ugh.

Chalk one up for the politics of demonization.  A big one...

Last night was definitely ugly.

Many good people, and at least one great one, lost their jobs last night.

The results page on the AZ Secretary of State's website is here.

First, the genuinely ugly - Harry Mitchell, the icon of public service, lost the CD5 race to real estate vulture David Schweikert.  Apparently, the majority of voters in CD5 have decided that they don't want a public servant to represent them in Congress, instead giving their nod to a public predator (geez, can ya tell I'm still pissed over this one? ).

The entire Schweikert campaign platform can be summed up thusly:  Obamacare!

Seriously, that was it. 

I was on sign detail for one of the down ballot candidates here, and every polling place had at least 5 - 8 little signs that had one word on them - "Obamacare."  Sometimes they were placed at random, sometimes they were placed next to Mitchell signs, and at least once, place *in* a Mitchell sign.

More on this race in the next few days, after I decompress.

...There was lots of bad (some really bad) on Tuesday.

- The Rs swept the statewide races.  Some of the D losses were expected, but to elect two people who have long records of being crooks to positions of great public trust like Attorney General and Treasurer?

As noted above, last night was a triumph of the politics of demonization, but "willful ignorance" also ran wild in Arizona on Tuesday.

- The Rs also increased their majority in the legislature, mostly by knocking off a number of Democratic women.

Former State Representative Jackie Thrasher (LD10) lost her bid to return to the House, down by almost 3000 votes.

State Representative Rae Waters (LD20) is down 1400 votes in her reelection bid.

State Senator Rebecca Rios (LD23)  is down almost 5000 votes her race.

State Representative Barbara McGuire (LD23) is down almost 7000 votes.

State Senator Amanda Aguirre (LD24) is down more than 3000 votes in her race.

State Representative Pat Fleming (LD25) is down more than 3000 votes.

State Representative Nancy Young Wright (LD26) is down slightly less than 900 votes in her race.

In keeping with the Rs' anti-woman theme, Dirty Scottsdale writer and "chip off the ol' potatoe" Ben Quayle won the CD3 seat being vacated by John Shadegg.  His opponent ran as a Republican dressed up in a Democrat's clothing.  Turns out that didn't inspire the D base to turn out.  Who knew?

The politics of demonization was effective on a number of ballot propositions, too.

Prop 106 (anti-healthcare reform), Prop 107 (anti-affirmative action), and Prop 113 (anti-union) were all approved by the voters.

...There were a few nuggets of good in yesterday's carnage.  OK, less "good" than "not horrificly bad" -

 - Prop 301 (ending and sweeping the monies from the Land Conservation Fund) and Prop 302 (ending First Things First, the early childhood education program that was created by the voters in a previous election) have been turned away by the voters.  The Rs in the lege will use this as a rationalization to further gut education and social infrastructure programs in the name of "balancing the budget," but they were going to that anyway.  They just would have found a different excuse if the Props had passed.

- In out-of-state results that may have a direct impact on Arizona, Kris Kobach, the nativist lawyer who wrote SB1070 for fellow traveller Russell Pearce, won his election as Secretary of State in Kansas.  He'll be overseeing elections there.  He ran on a anti-immigrant platform, and has pledged to work to minimize the number of immigrants voting there.  God help Kansas.  On the plus side, we can always hope that his duties/schemes in KS serve to distract him from Arizona.

- Also turned away were R challenges to U.S. Reps. Gabrielle Giffords (CD8) and Raul Grijalva (CD7) (however, CD8 remains close, so there is a chance that one will change, though Giffords is ahead by approximately 2000 votes as of this writing.)

- In my home LD, District 17, State Rep. David Schapira has fended off what had appeared to be a strong challenger for the LD17 Senate seat.  Wendy Rogers was touted as the kind of conservative who could win in a Democratic-leaning swing district.  Turns out she was actually just a polished version of her ticketmate, Don Hawker.  House candidate Hawker was the epitome of the "single issue" candidate, literally blaming all that ails Arizona (and the country) on abortion.

Both were wrong for the community, wrong for the district, and wrong for the state, and voters in D17 saw that.  One of the advantages of living in a district with a lot of university professors and students in it.

- In some of the down ballot races, there was some good news -

Retiring State Senator Meg Burton Cahill defeated a retired barber for the Justice of the Peace spot in the University Lakes Justice Precinct.  Some ugly robocalls funded by the Arizona Multihousing Association failed to defeat the popular Tempean.

Dana Saar of Fountain Hills defeated embarrassment Jerry Walker of Mesa for Walker's seat on the Governing Board of the Maricopa County Community College District.  Walker has shamed his constituents and the District a number of times with his thuggish behavior.  Saar taking the seat will help restore the credibility of this embattled board.


...The one spark of hope, in Arizona and across the nation, that I can find from yesterday's results (and I had to dig deep to find this one) -

In 1994, that national R wave occurred two years *after* redistricting took place.  

In 2010, the wave took place two years *before* redistricting.  The Rs, especially the tea baggers, won't have time to entrench themselves before having to run in radically different districts in 2012.

More later, on CD5 and some of the local races and ballot questions...

DNC ad: Don't sit this one out

Campaign superlatives

Inspired by Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic, who has a column up with the title "My picks for the most memorable performances of this campaign season."
Mostly her column is a series of criticisms of the effors of some of the campaigns. I can do that, and will, but I've got a few compliments, too.


Toward the end of the high school year, yearbooks come out, with picks (and pics) of the "the most" whatever or "the class" blah.  Now that we are nearing the end of the campaign cycle, it's time for campaign superlatives.


...The "Least Likely To Have A Future On American Idol" Award:  Rodney Glassman, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.  His video performance of "Sweet Home Arizona" was easily the most entertaining video of the season, and it was energetic.  Other than that...?

...The "Truth?  We don't need no stinking truth! " Award:  Many worthy nominees, but this one goes to the Yes on Prop 302 folks.  They've got signs all over the state pimping the proposition with "Stop Wasteful Government Spending."  They've also go signs up saying the Prop 302 is "for the kids" or some such tripe.

Prop 302 would defund and destroy First Things First, a program for early childhood education and health care.  The money set aside for it via a voter-approved dedicated tax would then go into the state's General Fund and be subject to appropriation by the lege.  The expectation is that the lege would use the revenue as an excuse for more corporate tax cuts, and then use the resulting reduction in revenue as an excuse for cutting education and children's health care programs even more than they already have been.

...The "Most Expensive Campaign By A Candidate Who Isn't Even On The Ballot" Award:  Maricopa County's own Joltin' Joe Arpaio.  The nativist sheriff isn't up for reelection until 2012, but he spent over $700K on TV spots targeting Rick Romley, a candidate for Maricopa County Attorney, and incurred a fine of $150K more for his illegal "in-kind" contribution.

...The "Most Likely To Be Cursing Poor Timing" Award:  Joe Hart, the incumbent Arizona Mine Inspector.  Hart looks to be openly in the pocket of the industry he's supposed to regulate (he takes lots of campaign contributions from them, and they help create laws to specifically increase his job security).

He started the campaign season well-funded and bunkered legally, and looked to be cruising to an easy reelection.  Then 33 miners in Chile became trapped in an unsafe mine, and even worse, had the audacity to survive for more than two months underground before being rescued.

The world's, and Arizona's attention became focused on the drama in Chile, and unfortunately for Hart, on all things mining.

Including Hart's dearth of qualifications for the job, and the wealth of experience in the safe operation of mines on the part of his opponent Manny Cruz.

...The "Most Likely To Wish That The Election Was Held The Day After She Signed SB1070" Award:  Who else?  Jan "Brain Freeze" Brewer.  She started out the real election cycle (i.e. - after the other major R candidates dropped out of their primary) with a huge lead over Terry Goddard.  Right now, however, the short calendar between the primary and general elections is her best friend.

Between...

- Nationally ridiculed false claims of headless bodies in the Arizona desert...

- The aforemention "brain freeze" during her one and only debate with Goddard...

- National coverage of the ties between private prisons, SB1070, and her circle of lobbyists/advisers

- and other missteps, she has since allowed Goddard to close the gap with her, turning the contest into one that will be won by the organization with the stronger GOTV effort.  She still leads in recent polling, but Tuesday can't come soon enough for her.


..."Most Likely To Be A Chip Off The Old Block" Award:  Ben Quayle.  Dad can't spell "potato" correctly; son doesn't know history, calling Barack Obama the "worst president in history" in a TV spot, ignoring the fact that his deep-pocketed well-connected daddy used to work for the deep-pocketed well-connected daddy of the one of the "worst presidents in history," the one who was the worst in well over a century.

Later...

GOTV time...

Due to there only being 24 hours in a day, blogging will be intermittent through the elections on Tuesday.

Some posts will go up, but no guarantees on the scheduling.

Stay updated on the latest AZ political news at Blog for Arizona, Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion, Democratic Diva, Dry Heat Democrat, or any of the blogs listed on the sidebar.

After you catch up on your reading, sign up for GOTV efforts at your nearest Democratic Party office here.

Hope to see you out canvassing!

Spin, Half-truths and Lies: Schweikert campaign running on empty

...but that's all they have left...and "half-truths" may be giving them too much credit...

Early yesterday, the Schweikert campaign breathlessly sent out an email press release, touting a police report in Tempe concerning a Tempe resident who "pushed down" two anti-Mitchell signs.

The one piece of truth?  Such an incident did, in fact, occur, at least according to this police report (courtesy the Arizona Capitol Times).

After that, the press release gets more than a little light on facts.

The press release starts by conflating this incident with a 2000 incident where Mitchell was accused of stealing some signs.

The press release pontificates on that one with "[t]here was no question that Congressman Mitchell broke the law then."

The problem with that? 

The charges were dismissed, and that dismissal was upheld on appeal.  No matter how often Rs like to bring up the incident from 2000, they always seem to forget to mention that a judge ruled that no crime occurred.

Call this one the "half-truth, barely" part.

The press release then goes on to include a picture of some signs with "the kind of damage that has been occurring."

The problem with that?

The picture included in the press release wasn't of the signs that were part of the incident detailed in the police report.  It was of some of the unsightly "insult" signs that Schweikert has carpetbombed CD5 with.  The pic looks to have been staged in a parking lot, perhaps outside of Schweikert's campaign headquarters (I don't actually know where it was staged, just that it definitely looks staged).

Call this one the "spun into an outright lie" part, but at least it gave them an excuse to push their lies about Harry Mitchell one more time.

The Arizona Capitol Times has a story up that refutes the Schweikert campaign's spin and press release. 

In it, the writer points out that neither the alleged "damager" nor the complainer involved in the incident are directly involved in either the Mitchell or the Schweikert campaigns other than in expressing support for the respective candidates.  Speaking personally, I've been a frequent visitor to the Mitchell campaign office in Tempe, and I've never heard of the man accused of damaging the signs.

The Schweikert supporter, however, is a somewhat different story.

I've never heard of him by name, but he is quoted in the police report saying that he "has a company called Jet Media."

The Cap Times' story quotes Jim Torgeson, the owner of Jet Media, as claiming that the signs weren't commissioned by the Schweikert campaign.

From the story -

"But Jet Media owner Jim Torgeson said that Sanders’ signs were not commissioned by the Schweikert campaign, and that they personally belonged to Sanders, not the company."

That opens up a big can of worms for the Schweikert campaign.

The press release claims very specifically that the signs involved in the Tempe incident *are* the property of the Schweikert campaign.

From the press release -

"The signs in question are the property of David Schweikert’s campaign."

That's pretty unequivocal.

It also means that someone is violating campaign finance laws.

Either the complainer owns them and is engaging in political advocacy without filing campaign finance paperwork with the AZ Secretary of State (which he hasn't), or Schweikert owns them and needs to put the appropriate "paid for by" on the signs (which he hasn't, apparently, because there isn't one on the signs.)

Other issues -

Mr. Torgeson is a Republican operative of long standing, using his sign company to harass Democratic candidates in Tempe for years now.

Mr. Torgeson's company, Jet Media, received over $7400 worth of sign business from the Schweikert campaign just between late August and late September, according to Schweikert's FEC filings.  I don't know if the signs that the Schweikert campaign purchased from Torgeson were the ones involved in the above incident, but that's a lot of money going to a small sign company relatively late in the cycle.

Mr. Torgeson is listed with the Arizona Corporation Commission as President of Jet Media Promotions, Inc.  That corporation was administratively dissolved by the ACC earlier this year because of its failure to file an annual report.  Not sure how/if that impacts the legal operation of the sign business, but it's definitely sloppy on Mr. Torgeson's part.


Still, given that we are now less than five days from Election Day, this is just a meaningless distraction.  Any proceedings stemming from the above incident will take weeks or even months to run to completion; any possible campaign finance violations could take *years* to resolve.

Time to do a little canvassing.

Later...

Turns out that Russell Pearce is far more well-rounded than I gave him credit for...

...I thought he was just a thoroughgoing bigot, but according to someone who knows him better than I do, he is also petty, vindictive, and prone to violence.

Earlier, I put up a post that covered State Sen. Russell Pearce's (R-National Alliance) attempts to interject himself into a legal conflict between the Tohono O'odham nation and the City of Glendale over a proposed tribal casino on the edge of Glendale.

At that time, I speculated that Pearce's interest in the situation stemmed from a basic dislike of Native Americans (they may be "Natives," but they aren't "natives," ya know what I mean?), but thanks to Greg Patterson at Espresso Pundit, I humbly stand corrected.

From Patterson's post on (roughly) the same topic (he started off talking about an anti-Prop 302 mailer) -

...But that's only one reason why Legislators like Pearce are ticked off. Look who else sponsored the mailer...that's right, the tribes. If you are new to the legislative process, you may ask yourself what the Tohono O'odam's opposition to Prop 302 has to do with the Tohono O'odam casino in Glendale? The answer is that it has everything to do with it. Everything in the Legisature is connected. That means that if the Legislature creates Prop 302 in order to avoid steep cuts in services and the Tohono O'odam use Indian Gaming money to kill that Proposition, then the Legislature is likely to go after the Tohono O'dam's casino.

Seriously, did you not even watch one episode of the Sopranos?

Prop 302 is likely to fail. So the legislature is going to have a $400 million hole in its budget. Naturally, they will use the cover that Eddie and Nadine Basha have provided and cut as much as they can out of the budget.

But they will still need revenue...and they sure as heck aren't going to raise taxes. So they are out of borrowing capacity, and they can't have the First Things First money because their first proposal was shot down by the Tribes. So what's left?

Well, Indian Gaming is left. Of course they can't take the money from the tribes...but they can COMPETE with the tribes.

Something tells me that real-life mobsters will be insulted by the comparison...
Apparently, free speech protections only apply to people who agree with Pearce and the other small "n" nativists. All others should just take the abuse, shut up, and like it.


So, in one brief passage, he details how Pearce (and his colleagues in the R caucus of the lege) is going after the Tohono O'odham because they've dared to oppose his move to defund and destroy early childhood education in Arizona in order to pay for corporate tax cuts.  And he compares his fellow Rs to mobsters.

Nice.

Andrei Cherny for State Treasurer TV spot

More info on the Cherny campaign here...

Felecia Rotellini for Attorney General TV Spot

More info on Rotellini's campaign here...

KVOA getting ready for next week's elections...

They've put up some "test" returns for Arizona House races on their website, and didn't pull down the test before I noticed it.

Heh heh heh heh, time for a little fun (and it is just fun - they've got Ds winning in districts that are R locks, and Rs winning in D districts.  In other words, these are just numbers serving as space fillers, not reality or even predictions of reality)...

Highlights -

District 4

103 of 103 precincts - 100 percent
x-Judy Burges, GOP (i) 36,972 - 45 percent
x-Karina Guerrero, Dem 32,864 - 40 percent
Jack Harper, GOP 12,324 - 15 percent
2 to be elected.

No more Jack Harper?  Fingers (and toes) crossed for the future of LD4 and the state...

District 11

83 of 83 precincts - 100 percent
x-Eric Meyer, Dem (i) 23,522 - 45 percent
x-Eric West, GOP 20,908 - 40 percent
Kate Brophy McGee, GOP 7,840 - 15 percent

If there is any justice in the world, this one, with Eric Meyer winning, will become reality in a week.  It would annoy the hell out of some industry groups, too, as they've dropped a lot of cash on McGee.

District 17

69 of 69 precincts - 100 percent
x-Ed Ableser, Dem (i) 17,611 - 43 percent
x-Ben Arredondo, Dem 16,201 - 40 percent
Donald Hawker, GOP 1,823 - 5 percent
Cristian Dumitrescu, Lib 1,709 - 4 percent
Damian Trabel, Lib 1,603 - 4 percent
Gregor Knauer, Grn 1,555 - 4 percent

This is my home district, and this result would definitely work for me...

District 19

65 of 65 precincts - 100 percent
x-Kirk Adams, GOP (i) 24,674 - 45 percent
x-Kit Filbey, Dem 21,933 - 40 percent
Justin Olson, GOP 8,224 - 15 percent
2 to be elected.

Won't happen, but this would be nice.  It would be nicer still if Adams was the R who came in third.

District 20

59 of 59 precincts - 100 percent
x-Rae Waters, Dem (i) 22,657 - 45 percent
x-Bob Robson, GOP 20,138 - 40 percent
Jeff Dial, GOP 7,552 - 15 percent
2 to be elected.

As with Meyer above, in a truly just world Waters would win this one in a walk.

Russell Pearce: the man who wants to be shadow governor also wants to be shadow dictator of every city in the state

Russell Pearce may deride the U.S. government, saying that "states' rights" supercede any central authority, but he doesn't hold the same for Arizona's cities and towns in their dealings with the central authority of the Arizona state government.

First, his SB1070 would have shanghaied municipal police officers into his anti-immigrant purging force, no matter what the elected leaders of those municipalities thought their employees should be doing (you know, like preventing or investigating crimes in their jurisdictions).  It may still do so, but the law is winding its way through the courts.

Then, perhaps feeling that the City of Glendale is lax in fighting against the encroachment of Native Americans upon the Valley (yes, that's sarcasm.  Native Americans of one tribe or another were here long before the first settler with European roots.  Pearce is a small "n" nativist, not a capital "N" one.), Pearce has tried to interject himself into Glendale's legal conflict with the Tohono O'odham over a proposed tribal casino next to that city.

Pearce doesn't represent any part of Glendale (of course, that's a minor detail, considering that he doesn't actually work to represent his "official" constituents in West Mesa), nor is the legislature or the state government involved in the fight, but he still wants to meddle in the affairs of Glendale and the Tohono O'odham.

Finally, this past spring, he pushed through a bill, SB1108, that allows people to carry concealed firearms without a permit or even training.  Beside that, it included a provision requiring that legitimately confiscated weapons be sold to gun dealers, unless such action would violate "FEDERAL, STATE OR LOCAL LAW."

He thought he had ensured a steady supply of low-cost product for local gun dealers.

Until a number of municipalities started passing ordinances requiring that confiscated weapons be destroyed (the "local law" segment of the above provision).

Now, he decries the "loophole" in the law (a law that he wrote and was the sole sponsor of) that allows cities and towns to determine their own procedures and governance, and has promised to "fix" the law so that cities and towns have no option but to put forfeited weapons back into public circulation.


So the man who doesn't help Mesa, even though he has been elected to represent part of it,  wants to interfere in  the local affairs of *other* cities? 

It's time for the voters of LD18 to make a change and elect somebody who will actually represent them.

Vote for Andrew Sherwood for State Senate.

Latest adventures of Schweikert and the voter

This is a parody of David Schweikert and the tea party platform (Obama/Pelosi BAD!  Corporate tax cuts GOOD!)

New Brewer video...

...and it's definitely scary enough for pre-Halloween viewing...

Hat tip to Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times for the heads-up on this...

Phoenix videographer Dennis Gilman has put together a video compilation of some of Jan Brewer's creepiest utterances as a sort of independent Get Out The Vote effort.

CD5: All Politics Isn't Just Local, It's People

Nearly two decades ago, former House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill published a followup to his best-selling autobiography (Man of the House) titled "All Politics Is Local."

That's a truism that all successful elected officials, before and since, have taken to heart.  Taking care of the district that elected them and understanding its needs is paramount for any elected looking to be a "re-elected."

Even more important than that, though, is people.

Specific artificially-created land areas on a map like political districts don't have needs, the people who live in those districts do.

Districts don't vote for candidates, people do.

And most importantly for the point of this post, districts don't form the backbones of political campaigns, people do.

The ground game of any campaign, particularly in a close race like CD5, is what makes the difference on Election Day.

An effective ground game that connects with voters can turn back a high-powered and heavily-funded aerial attack.

All of the TV ads and mailers funded by secretive corporate front groups and bungee campaign appearances by national figures employed by Fox News mean nothing next to volunteers talking to their neighbors.

In this, Harry Mitchell's lifetime of service to Tempe, Scottsdale, and Arizona is standing him in good stead. 

People are turning out in droves to help defend the man who has worked for them for decades, from teaching their children in school to advocating for them in the halls of Congress.

His ground game, hundreds of volunteers dialing or knocking and talking, is thumping the Schweikert campaign's. 

Over Columbus Day weekend, the Schweikert campaign bragged about making 5000 calls to voters.

By comparison, the Mitchell campaign made over 50,000 calls that same weekend.

It's not just on the holiday weekends that the respect and affection for Mitchell is showing through.

Anecdotally, this past weekend, I was at the Mitchell campaign office to make some calls.  I put down my stuff to go get some water before getting on the phones.  By the time I returned to that particular phone just a couple of minutes later, somebody else had already moved in to that seat and was making calls.  I had to wait a little while (~15 minutes) before another station opened up.

More than the volunteers in the office and out walking in neighborhoods, thousands of voters across the district have turned out for dozens of house parties for Mitchell.

By contrast, the Schweikert campaign's ground game seems to be floundering.

Just this past weekend, they sent out a "desperate" call for volunteers (their word, not mine) to do the things that the Mitchell campaign's volunteers have been doing for months - walk and talk to their neighbors.

Early last week, they sent out an equally desperate email, calling for "volunteers" to make their campaign office look busy during a visit from a reporter from the national political news site, Politico.

From the email from the Schweikert campaign's volunteer director, forwarded to me (misspellings theirs, not mine) -

I am in urgent need of your help. I need a ton of phone callers in the office tomorrow from 1:30pm until 3:30pm.. Here is why-- We have reporters coming in from one of the biggest political sites in the nation. We need to look like the best run, well staffed campaign in the natin..

I've never seen such an email from the Mitchell campaign, even though they also received a visit from a Politico reporter.
There's no need for it - -the only times when I haven't seen the office busy is when most volunteers were out walking neighborhoods.


The sad thing is, in a close race in a Republican-leaning swing district, money can make a difference, and David Schweikert has access to a LOT of out-of-state corporate cash.  Just during the writing of this post, I've seen at least three Schweikert spots on TV, none actually paid for by Schweikert. (My favorite:  the perfectly-timed for Halloween spot paid for by John McCain with McCain and Jon Kyl touting Schweikert while wearing dark suits in front of a black background.  They look like disembodied heads floating in the air from a cheesy grade-Z horror movie from the 1950s.  Seriously spooky.)

He may not be *earning* the seat, but we are in danger of he and his allies *buying* the seat.

There are eight days left before the election, and Harry Mitchell needs our support, votes, and time more than ever.  Keeping the phones staffed and neighborhoods covered is what will put Harry over the top.

Sign up here to volunteer to walk or call voters between now and Election Day.

Chris Deschene on KNXV-TV

Video courtesy Phoenix's channel 15.

The campaign website of Chris Deschene, Democratic candidate for Arizona Secretary of State, is here.

Pic of the cycle...

Just in time for both Halloween and next Tuesday's election.

Emailed from a friend in Tempe...

Sunday good thoughts from Rose Mofford

Simple and direct...

Pic of the artwork courtesy an email from the Goddard campaign, original artwork courtesy former Governor Rose Mofford...

Entering the home stretch in Arizona...

and something tells me that Jan, her clan, and the rest of the Rs are happy that the election cycle comes to an end on November 2, not December 2. 

From the East Valley Tribune -

Goddard catching up with Brewer in final weeks of gubernatorial campaign

Gov. Jan Brewer's large lead over Democrat Terry Goddard is eroding in the final weeks of a campaign that once looked like a runaway victory for the Republican incumbent

{snip}

While Brewer led Goddard by 20 points in July, she's supported by 38 percent of likely voters compared with Goddard's 35 percent, according to a Behavior Research poll conducted the first 10 days of October. The gap between the candidates narrowed as support for Goddard rose during the survey.


Libertarian Barry Hess and the Green Party's Larry Gist had 6 percent between the two of them.

It's getting closer, but to put Terry, and Chris, Felecia, Andrei, Penny, and Manny. over the top, sign up here to volunteer with the Arizona Democratic Party or your local county or coordinated campaign office.


Being exhausted from a day of canvassing or phone banking will suck, but a single night's sleep will recharge your batteries.

Years of Republicans holding statewide office will suck worse, and it will take years, even generations, to fix the damage.

Nine days of campaigning left. Nine days for the future of Arizona.


Note on 10/24: something goofy happened with the formatting of this post.  It's been corrected.

Harry Mitchell on KNXV-TV

Harry Mitchell's website is here.

From Phoenix's channel 15.

It's getting Ugly out there...

As we approach Election Day, any Republican facade of civility is sloughing off in the heat of the races.

Witness recent developments:

- A conservative astroturf group, "Latinos for Reform" released a Spanish-language TV spot that attempted to suppress Latino voter turnout...

- GOP/tea party operatives are running voter suppression efforts in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, and elsewhere that are specifically targeted at Democratic-leaning minority communities...

- Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce (R-National Alliance) has announced his latest effort to inflict his vision of ethnic purity on America - he's targeting the 14th Amendment and its provision that grants citizenship to children born in the USA.

It won't succeed, and I suspect Pearce knows that, but it keeps the conversation on a topic that the Rs think they can win on - demonization of the "other" - and may provide the fading Jan Brewer an SB1070-like bump at the polls.

- A Pearce clone in Florida, State Rep. William Snyder, has proposed a version of the infamous SB1070, one that carves out an exemption for white people in the form of a presumption that anyone from Canada or a "visa waiver" country is in the U.S. legally. 

The vast majority of the countries that are part of the visa waiver program are European; none are Latin American.

- Then just yesterday, Congressman Raul Grijalva's Tucson office was shut down and evacuated after someone sent it a swastika-covered package containing a toxic substance.

Lies, hatred, threats of violence - the Rs are pulling out all the stops this year, and the only way to stop them is to urge your family, friends, and neighbors to stand strong for their community against the Republicans, their contempt for civility, and their fear-mongering.

Everybody who can vote, *should,* and they should be able to exercise their rights free from intimidation and fraudulent attempts to stifle their participation America's political process.


Note:  The Arizona Humanities Council will present a screening of the documentary 9500 Liberty on Tuesday evening at the Arizona Historical Society Museum in Tempe.  9500 Liberty covers the effects (and failure) of an SB1070-like law in Prince William County, Virginia.

Details:

Tuesday, October 26, 2010


6:00-8:00 pm

Arizona Historical Society Museum

1300 N. College Avenue

Tempe, AZ 85281
 
 
Later...