Ask yourself: ‘Is the Arizona of today — the status quo — the Arizona you want for tomorrow?’

The Arizona House has been controlled by Republicans since the election of 1966. No, that’s not a typo. It has really been that long.

The Arizona Senate has been controlled by Republicans for the past 14 years. Democrats shared a bipartisan 15-15 split with the election of 2000 that lasted only two years (because of GOP domination of the newly created Independent Redistricting Commission in 2002). Democrats last won control of the Senate chamber outright in the election of 1990.

Tea Party radicals actually predate their pseudo-patriotic “tea party” label, going back to the election of 2004 when radical-right conservatives sought to oust GOP moderates aka RINO’s who sided with Democrats in the legislature to bypass their conservative GOP leadership. As I recall, some six GOP moderates were purged in GOP primaries that year, something still celebrated by the radical-right to this day.

Governor Jan Brewer has been in charge for six years, and for the last four years, all statewide offices have been controlled by Tea-Publicans.

So if you are not happy with the way things are in Arizona, and you are not satisfied with the status quo, there is only one thing you can do:  elect more Democrats to office. Vote for a change, and a new direction.

Sarah Garrecht Gassen of the Arizona Daily Star distills this election down into one simple question: Is this the Arizona you want?

Is the Arizona of today — the status quo — the Arizona you want for tomorrow?

This, at its most fundamental, is the question to answer on Tuesday’s Election Day. It’s not a partisan question, but an American question.

And it’s the question that millions and millions of dollars have been spent to keep you from bothering to answer.

Do the ads that rip at one candidate really make you want to go vote for his or her opponent? Or do they feed the sick feeling that it’s all a waste of time and your voice doesn’t matter anyway?

The triumph of those nasty awful ads would be for you, a registered voter, to stay home. Pushing people out of the process, throwing enough noise at them to give up their vote, is a sideways attempt at voter suppression. Don’t let it work.

So again, the question. Do you want the same thing in the upcoming legislative session as we saw in the last legislative session? Is this what is best for our state?

I know how I answer the question — the Arizona of today is not the Arizona I want for tomorrow. The cost of the unfettered status quo comes at too high a price. We need change. We need to make investments in people if Arizona is to succeed as a state.

Arizona needs elected officials who won’t stand up in court, as they did this week, and claim it’s “impossible” to pay back the millions owed to the public school system, while refusing to close tax loopholes and going ahead with planned corporate tax cuts. That’s a decision on priorities.

Arizona needs elected officials who will think for themselves and follow their own path, not one laid out for them by ideological groups bent on pushing a narrow agenda at the expense of the big picture.

Arizona needs voters who evaluate with whom candidates align themselves — not only in terms of candidates’ own supporters, but who they support. Associations with organizations and individuals are designed to send a message to voters.

Arizona needs elected officials who have had the courage and courtesy to appear in public before potentially unfriendly crowds.

A candidate who disrespects voters by canceling debates or refusing to appear will be an elected official with no regard for constituents. [Note: All of the Tea-Publican candidates for office cancelled debate appearances around the state outside of the state of Maricopa.]

Along those lines, refusing to explain your record, including controversial votes, tells a voter everything he or she needs to know about who the candidate thinks they work for — and it’s not us.

This is how I answer the question, in the big-picture way. Everyone’s answer is her own, as it should be.

Each registered voter — and why anyone who is eligible to register but doesn’t bother is beyond me — has the civic obligation to say “enough” to the cesspool of negative campaign ads, unchecked distortions and candidates who won’t answer questions.

And the only way to do that is to vote.