Real campaign season about to start: Sine Die here

The legislative session has adjourned sine die, meaning that on Thursday, the lege engaged in a marathon session (though not as "marathon" as some sine die sessions from years past).  They passed some very bad bills, but at least it's over until January

The end of the legislative session marks the unofficial start of campaign season (ok, people have been campaigning for months, but now it's really going to ramp up).  However, some folks have been getting a head start.


...In CD9, the gloves are coming off. 

- Word broke that Democratic candidate Andrei Cherny sent out some apparently racist mailers during his unsuccessful 2002 campaign for the California Assembly (equivalent to the House of Representatives in Arizona).

- The Cherny campaign responded by sending out an email blasting fellow Democrat Kyrsten Sinema for taking a "I was for it while I was against it" stance on a military response to the 9/11 attacks (no link, but if you're interested, drop me an email and I'll forward it to you).

...In LD25, Russell Pearce, the former senate president who was ignominously recalled by the voters last November, is running, both for a return to the Senate and to distance himself from his infamous ally, mass murderer JT Ready.  We'll have to wait until August (primary) and November (general election) to see about the "return" part of his scheme, but we already know the "distancing" part isn't going so well.

Methinks that blaming the media for actually covering his relationship to Ready may not have been the way to convince the media to ignore said relationship.

To whit: 

EJ Montini of the Arizona Republic

Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times

Nick Martin of TalkingPointsMemo

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center


...In CD4, the influential corporate lobby group (with deep pockets, which is why they are so influential in R circles) has endorsed Ron "Confederate Flag" Gould.  The interesting part of the endorsement was the way CFG totally ignored disgraced-but-still-Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and just lambasted freshman GOP member of Congress Paul Gosar.  Look for the negative but expensive mailers and TV spots to start hitting mail boxes and airwaves soon.

...To be sure, there will be more to come...