OK, so maybe putting your name to something doesn't add to your credibility

...not if that something is utter crap.

Note: Tedski was on top of this earlier today, but the topic deserves more attention.

Chuck Coughlin, a Republican consultant, long-time Republican activist, and adviser to Governor Jan Brewer (in short, he's a career political hack) penned a piece for the AZ Republic's opinion page. The piece metes out blame for the mess surrounding the state's budget.

This may be a surprise to some (OK, not really), but he feels that the majority Republicans in the lege are almost totally blameless, and their Governor (his client) is *totally* blameless.

He blames the legislative gridlock surrounding the budget on the Voting Rights Act, term limits, Clean Elections and, of course, Democrats.

Apparently, the state's fiscal issues are the fault of minorities exercising their right to vote, a dearth of easily influenced "highly experienced" career pols in the lege, citizen-funded candidates instead of corporate-funded candidates, and, of course, those pesky Dems with their opposition of the Republican "backhoe to paradise".

Change those things, and the state will become a fiscal Nirvana.

It couldn't be the responsibility of the majority Republicans and the Governor and their preference for serving the likes of realtors, developers, and mining interests (perhaps not coincidentally, Couglin's consulting business has clients from all of those industries) over serving the interests of their constituents, could it?

Nah...'course not.

:))

...Coughlin's piece does bring to mind one question. Is this piece, however bad, a product of Coughlin alone, or is it a signal from Brewer to both the Democrats and the Republicans in the lege that she isn't really interested in doing any kind of real negotiating with the Democrats?

Later...