Racism and bigotry rears its ugly head in AZ Republican primary

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This is so surprising.

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From KJZZ, written by Camryn Sanchez, dated 6/30 -

Arizona superintendent candidate Kimberly Yee calls attack ad 'racist,' blames opponent Tom Horne

A new TV attack ad targets Arizona candidate for school superintendent Kimberly Yee and accuses her of being too liberal. Both Yee and her opponent call it racist.

Yee, a Republican who currently serves as the state treasurer, is Chinese American and is portrayed in the ad with an Asian backdrop, the sound of gongs and the tagline “empress of DEI,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.

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Yee accused her primary opponent, Republican incumbent Tom Horne, of being behind it.

“Tom Horne and his supporters have clearly put out a racist attack, it’s out of line with Arizonans, and they have nothing but a failed track record to run on, so they’re reverting to racism,” Yee said Monday.

Tom Horne, the incumbent AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction, denied any involvement with the ad, but he's been known to lie.

I'm not a fan of Yee, but I'm more not a fan of Horne - he's a profoundly lousy human being, possibly the worst in AZ politics, and he has a LOT of rivals for the crown..

Yee is partially right when she says "it’s out of line with Arizonans..."

Actually, it's out of line with *most* Arizonans.

Most Arizonans don't vote in Republican primaries.

And the fact that the surrogates (Horne's?) believe that message will persuade voters in an R primary says a LOT about what they think of the character of R primary voters.

During the research for this post, I learned a couple of things.

1. The PAC behind this ad, Arizonans for Election Integrity, utilizes a CA-based company, Liberty Strategic Partners, hasn't registered with the Arizona Corporation Commission (at least, not under that name).  The California Secretary of State (CASOS) has the following information: 

Note: The listed agent here, Jonathan Huey, is listed as the Treasurer of the PAC -

2. There's a quirk in the financial reporting periods for committees that are politically active in AZ.

The post primary report period post dates the Q2 report period but is due *before* the Q2 report is due.

From the AZ SOS -

Initially, I thought they had simply skipped filing the Q2 report, which would be significant, as the expenditures for the ad were in Q2, but the Q2 report is not yet due.