Month: October 2013

By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings

Say what you want about Arizona politics (and try not to guffaw…or weep…or both…when speaking about AZ politics), this state doesn't seem to have a problem with electing women.

For example, four out of our last five governors have been women – Rose Mofford, Jane Hull, Janet Napolitano, and Jan Brewer.

Another example – two out of our nine members of Congress (and two out of our five Democratic representatives) are women – Ann Kirkpatrick and Kyrsten Sinema.

Women
who are running for office here have some great role models to follow,
if they choose to take their inspiration from other women who have been
candidates or office holders.

Some of the female
officeholders/candidates in this state have been outstanding examples
for anyone to follow, regardless of partisan identification or gender –

Before
she was the victim of an attempted assassination by a shooter who went
on to kill six and wound 12 other people, former congresswoman Gabrielle
Giffords was highly-respected, well-liked, and expected to move on to
bigger and better things.

In addition, word was that
whenever she met with the Republican leadership of the Arizona
legislature, former governor Janet Napolitano was usually the smartest
person in the room.  And when she wasn't, anybody in the room that was
smarter than her was there working for her.

Both were
and are known for their intelligence, professionalism, work ethic, and
desire to actually achieve solutions to problems and not for just
grandstanding.

In short, they have been among the best public servants in America, not just Arizona.

Unfortunately,
the willingness of the Arizona electorate to elect female candidates
has also supplied evidence that there are women who are as unfit for
office as some of the men who win elections here –

Governor Jan "Brain Freeze" Brewer ("Headless Bodies" would have worked here, too), former state senator Lori "Quickdraw" Klein (would have gone with "Thinks Bigoted And Ignorant Stereotypes Should Serve As The Foundation Of Public Discourse And Policy", but that is too long to serve as a nickname 🙂 ), and State Representative Brenda "Foot in Mouth" Barton are no better than Maricopa County Sheriff Joe "Federal court ruling? Who cares?!?" Arpaio, former state senate president Russell "Never Met A Brown Person He Didn't Want To Deport" Pearce, and former state senator Frank "Don't Make Me Mad" Antenori.

They all have brought, or are still bringing, great amounts of ridicule upon Arizona.

Now,
2014 Republican gubernatorial candidate Christine Jones has staked out
her campaign path, and it appears that she is patterning herself after
the crowd that merits ridicule, not respect.

She recently appeared at a fundraiser for the aforementioned Arpaio (video courtesy KTVK) –

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Former G. W. Bush flak and Washington Post pundit Michael Gerson describes the lay of the battlefield accurately in A House divided cannot govern:

It is now clear that there is no functional majority in the House of Representatives.

* * *

Will the tea party be chastened by recent defeat? Not likely, or not
for long. Because tea party leaders inhabit an alternative political
reality — sheltered in safe districts or states, applauded by
conservative media, incited (or threatened) by advocacy groups, carried
along by a deep current of anger and frustration among activists — they
have no incentive to view defeat as defeat. In fact, turning against
tactical radicalism would involve serious political risk. So every
setback is interpreted as a need for greater purity and commitment.

This
conflict is certain to bleed over into the 2016 Republican presidential
primaries. The influence of a highly committed minority is exaggerated
in small electorates. All the conditions for volatility will be present:
voters embittered by recent defeats, a growing infrastructure of tea
party institutions, a campaign finance system easily influenced by
ideologically eccentric billionaires.

So what is the old guard GOP establishment to do? Jia Lynn Yang of the Washington Post writes, Business groups want to take back the GOP. That won’t be easy.

The country’s biggest business groups are making noises
about taking on tea party candidates in primary races. But reclaiming a
more reliably pro-business Republican Party — one that stops railing
against “corporate welfare” and threatening to default on the nation's
debt obligations –isn’t going to be easy.

For one, the trade groups are talking about only a handful of races
so far: four primaries, only two of which would involve taking on
Republican incumbents. The group of House Republicans who led the charge
to shut down the government numbered in the dozens. And on Wednesday
night, 18 Republican senators and 144 GOP House members opposed the bill
to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.

Posted by Bob Lord

An interesting juxtaposition of articles from the Washington Post. 

On Tuesday, in Study: Poor Children Are Now The Majority In American Public Schools In South, West, the Post reported on a study showing that poor children were in the majority in public schools in the South and West, and that overall barely fewer than half our public students come from poor households. The Post:

But by 2011, almost half of the nation’s 50 million public-school students — 48 percent — qualified for free or reduced-price meals. In some states, such as Mississippi, that proportion rose as high as 71 percent.

In a large swath of the country, classrooms are filling with children who begin kindergarten already behind their more privileged peers, who lack the support at home to succeed and who are more than likely to drop out of school or never attend college.

“This is incredible,” said Michael A. Rebell, the executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Columbia University, who was struck by the rapid spike in poverty. He said the change helps explain why the United States is lagging in comparison with other countries in international tests.

Those are abysmal statistics. Want to know why they will get worse?

Then turn to Ezra Klein's Wonkblog post, Higher Taxes Shouldn't Be The Democratic Party's Top Priority, which appeared online in Wednesday's Post.