Arizona Daily Sun endorses Tom O’Halleran and Lanny Morrison in LD 6

I previously recommended to our neighbors in Northern Arizona to support Tom O’Halleran for LD 6 Senate. O’Halleran is a moderate Republican who is running as an Independent on the ballot this year. There is no Democrat in the LD 6 Senate race.

If successful, O’Halleran would become the first Independent ever elected to a statewide or legislative office in Arizona — so there you go, Independents, help a brother out.

Today the Arizona Daily Sun endorsed Tom O’Halleran for the Senate and Democrat Lanny Morrison for the House in LD 6, mostly because the Tea Party fringe candidates in Legislative District 6, on the batshit insanity advisory system, are off the scale. The editors of the Sun recognize that the LD6 extremism has become a liability:

We suppose that in a state where half the acreage is controlled by the federal government, there is bound to be some resentment when state and federal priorities clash.

But to make sovereignty over federal regulations the cornerstone of a campaign when your state stands last in the country in school funding and the economy has stalled is narrow-minded at best.

At worst, it is a prescription for yet another round of costly lawsuits and endless jokes on late-night talk shows about Arizona’s extremist, self-immolating politics.

And in Legislative District 6, not one but all three Republican candidates have taken up the cause of state sovereignty as their key platform plank, as represented by Prop. 122.

For GOP candidates Sylvia Allen, Brenda Barton and Bob Thorpe, federal overreach is the cause of Arizona’s problems, never mind the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal capital spending that has flowed back to Arizona since World War II. And then there is the shameful underfunding of public education mentioned above, caused in part by the equivalent of a $3 billion annual tax cut since 1991 in pursuit of economic growth. That’s nearly a third of the state budget, and the loss of revenue has not begun to be offset by greater job growth and investment, say economists.

We don’t have a magic elixir for what ails Arizona. But we’re pretty sure it does not consist solely of repealing federal rules, with even more tax cuts thrown in. Independent Senate candidate Tom O’Halleran and Democratic House contender Lanny Morrison at least are not one-note candidates, nor are they resistant to compromise in the interest of good governance.

Just as important, O’Halleran and Morrison would shift the discussion away from negative, ideology-driven legislation to a more winning focus on biomedical investment, public school excellence and promoting Arizona’s world-class national parks, among others. We’ve seen what extremist politics in the Legislature can do to an economy and an entire state’s image. It’s time to try a different tack, and O’Halleran and Morrison offer that choice. LD6 voters should exercise it.

To paraphrase DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, commenting on Iowa Tea Party Senate candidate and noted juggler of hog-nuts, Joni Ernst (h/t Charles Pierce):

“I know that this state is known for its wind energy, for corn, for soybeans, but that woman is an onion of crazy,” she said. “Every time you peel back a layer, you find something more disturbing about her views.”

“Onion of crazy” goes double for Sylvia Allen and Brenda Barton, two of the biggest loons to have ever served in the Arizona legislature, and there are plenty of contenders for that title.

It is a disgrace that a political party would put forward candidates this unqualified and incompetent to serve in political office. It is terrifying that the voters of this district care so little and are so wedded to GOP tribalism — “I only vote for the candidate with the (R) behind their name” — that they would elect a potted plant if it had an “(R)” behind its name, and all Arizonans must suffer the consequences of their utter recklessness and irresponsibility.

The Arizona Daily Sun did a great breakdown of the ideological insanity of the three Tea-Publicans in this article. The Great Divide: LD6 a polarized tossup – Arizona Daily Sun.

It’s time to stop the insanity and to “De-Kook the Capitol” (h/t The Arizona Republic). LD 6 has two excellent candidates in Tom O’Halleran and Lanny Morrison. It’s time to restore some sanity to the Capitol.