Is there such a thing as a "reverse endorsement"?

 Oh, the email lists that I'm on. :)

Certain endorsements don't speak well of the characters of the endorsees.

[snip]

[snip]

Truth: At one point, Hallman was mayor of Tempe.

More truth: he's got some interesting friends.

From the Arizona Republic in 2014 (emphasis added by me) -

Outside spending in treasurer's race gets dark

[snip]

Earlier this week, Preserve America's Future started putting up signs questioning the backgrounds of state treasurer candidates Jeff DeWit and Randy Pullen. The group is run by political operative Nathan Sproul, a supporter of candidate Hugh Hallman.

Fun with campaign signs: Hallman edition, chapter 2

Advice to politicos and would-be politicos:

When you are caught in some sort of misstatement and are being criticized, there are two viable options -

1. Fix the statement.

2. Ignore the criticism.


Whatever you do, however, don't double down.  That just gives your critics a 2nd bite at the apple.


To whit:

On Sunday, I posted about the campaign signs of Hugh Hallman, a Republican candidate for the office of Arizona State Treasurer.

His signs proclaim his focus on balancing the state's budget.

A few hours after putting up the post, Hallman (or someone from his campaign) tweeted a reply -

The reply didn't address the fact that the state treasurer has nothing to do with the state budget, but to be fair to him, I visited his website.  I wanted to see if the website, which can be updated/corrected far more readily than signs, showed that Hallman has a more realistic view of the duties of the office than his signs indicate.

The very front page of his website -

Soooooo...based on the "double down" strategy, I have to ask -

Is Hallman running for office or practicing for a Blackjack tournament?

Fun with campaign signs - Hallman Edition

Hugh Hallman, a former mayor of Tempe, is showing his "not ready for prime time" status with his current campaign signs.

This year, he's running for Arizona State Treasurer against two other Rs (no Democratic candidates are in the race, so that one will be decided in the R primary).

State treasurer is a low-profile position, so low profile that even knowledgeable activists don't know much about it.  And average voters?

They might know the job exists, but not much else.

And it appears that Hallman is looking to take advantage of that ignorance with misleading campaign signs -

The problem with this sign (and he has the same verbiage on his website)?

Other than period pilgrimages over to the lege to beg lobby for a bigger chunk of it, the state treasurer has almost NOTHING to do with the state's budget.

The budget is within the purview of the legislature, and they aren't giving up that one; the only reason that they pay any attention to the governor regarding the budget is because of the governor's veto power.

The state treasurer doesn't have that, so is ignored.

However, the average voter doesn't know the nitty-gritty of Arizona governance, so we get signs like this.