Arizona Daily Sun endorses Ann Kirkpatrick in CD 1
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The folks who know her best, the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff, endorsed Ann Kirkpatrick for Congress in CD 1. Kirkpatrick, an endangered moderate, deserves 2nd chance:
You wouldn't know it by all those screaming fliers in your mailbox, but there's actually a moderate running for Congress this year in Arizona.
She is Ann Kirkpatrick and she is running in our very own First Congressional District, which stretches from Flagstaff and the Rez down through the White Mountains to Casa Grande and the northern suburbs of Tucson.
Kirkpatrick is a Flagstaff Democrat, attorney and former prosecutor and state lawmaker who grew up on tribal lands in the White Mountains. She served in Congress in 2009-10, but her votes were hardly in lockstep with her party.
— She voted for Obamacare and the federal stimulus, but not for the auto bailout, Dodd-Frank financial reform or cap-and-trade energy credits to address global warming.
— She supports guns in national parks but not in college classrooms.
— She's for raising taxes on those earning more than $500,000 but also for reining in Medicare spending.
— She opposes mining for uranium in the Grand Canyon watershed but backs mining for copper outside Superior.
In other words, she incorporates parts of both the conservative and liberal agendas that make up the sprawling First District, a difficult balancing act that gives party hard-liners on both sides of the aisle fits.
Martha McSally: Warrior woman hides from questions, constituents, inconsistencies
by Pamela Powers Hannley
If there were a race between Senator Jon Kyl and former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who would you vote for?
The CD2 race is just that. Former Kyl employee Martha McSally is running against former Giffords employee Ron Barber.
Whose legacy would better serve Southern Arizona? That of a right-wing, anti-woman, every-man-for-himself, war-monger who never ventured south of his Tucson Foothills office or that of a reasoned, pro-choice, pro-public health Blue Dog who wasn't afraid to meet constituents?
As a long-time resident of Giffords' district, my experiences yesterday made up my mind. Yesterday, I thought I was going to meet the Warrior Woman who hopes to take the CD2 seat– you know, the one who says she "resemble[s] Gabby Giffords more than the man who worked for her”– but she was a no show.
McSally is no Gabby Giffords
Giffords was not afraid to face constituents and answer tough questions. McSally apparently doesn't have the nerve to answer questions that are not softballs from right-wing commentators. (Sounds like something Jon Kyl would do, huh?)
I had a scheduled interview with McSally to discuss women's issues (since she now claims to fight for women's rights, while being anti-choice); the multiple inconsistencies in her platform (believing in the "sanctity of life", while flying 325+ hours as a bomber) pilot; and rumors circulating about her two-year marriage to Donald Henry in 1997 (what's up with that annulment in Santa Cruz County, when you were married and lived in Pima County).
When I showed up at her office, video gear in tow, I was given mush-mouth excuses from her press secretary and campaign manager. "Gosh, she's so busy." (My guess is they Googled me and said, Yikes– we're not talking with her!)
Not surprised that McSally bailed on a video interview with a feminist who wanted to ask about women's issues, I went to her constituent event at Nimbus, down the street. I waited with about 30 old white folks on the Nimbus patio for 45 minutes. Eventually, McSally staffers said, "Gosh… she's so busy. She doesn't have time to come and talk with you all today. Scheduling conflicts, you know… blah, blah, blah." Since when does a politician in a tight race not have time for a meeting with rich, old white folks? (Was it something I tweeted?)
More unanswered questions about Martha McSally after the jump.
The Confused and Destructive Logic of the Wanna Be Richies
Posted by Bob Lord
First, some context. There are at least three perspectives from which to look at elections. One is the Chris Hedges view, which holds that elections are a sham and that corporate America will control no matter who is elected. Another is that elections do matter, but that the majority of voters are functionally illiterate at this point, such that their votes are as likely to be opposed to their own interest as in their own interest. The last is that elections matter, and that the majority of voters make decisions they belive are in their best interest. Although I fear Chris Hedges is correct in his view, this post is written from the most hopeful perspective — that some modicum of reason motivates voters and that there is at least some difference between the parties.
Obviously, the one percent can't win elections with just their own votes. Even with election fraud and the systematic disenfranchisement of minorities, they can only leverage their own votes so far. Throw in the gun nuts, the bible thumpers, the racists and the gay haters, and they still fall a good bit short of an electoral majority everywhere but the South. The constituency they need to get past 50% is what I call the Wanna Be Richies. Most of us have some desire to better our financial position, but that doesn't make us Wanna Be Richies (WBRs). WBRs share an aspiration to great wealth so strong that they think (and vote) as if they are truly rich. Incredible as it may seem, there are 40 year-old plumbers out there who vote Republican because they hope to own their own wildly successful plumbing business one day and don't want their kids to be faced with a "death tax." Unfortunately, the voting pattern of WBRs borders on the irrational, and is allowing the truly rich to pummel the rest of us with policies that are inflicting increasing misery on the masses.
Situationally, WBRs are akin to school age athletes. Whether it's golf, tennis, basketball or any other sport, the chances of making it to the top are slim. You can go to a playground in Houston and find hundreds of guys who are 99.99% as talented as the NBA stars who make millions. In golf, you can find guys (and gals) who actually are more talented than the touring pros, but don't quite have the mental toughness to make it. For every successful PGA tour player, there are hundreds of highly talented golfers who didn't quite make it. The odds are barely better for Wanna Be Richies. In the Republican version of the American Dream, you can rise from ordinary circumstances, build a business, and amass great wealth. In reality, for every success story you heard about at the Republican convention, there are many, many failures.
In private, Ally Miller denies her Tea Party denial. In public, meanwhile . . .
by David Safier
Ally Miller's bizarre public relationship with the Tea Party continues. She's a proud Tea Party member when she's among friends, sometimes mentioning it unprompted, but in her stump speech, it never comes up. She's just an aw shucks, moderate, good government type who wants to make Pima County more efficient and accountable. The one time she was asked on a nonpartisan radio show if she's a "Tea Party candidate" — by Mark Evans on the Bill Buckmaster show — her answer avoided mentioning the-group-that-has-no-name. She called it "name calling" and fabricating "horrible stories" about her. Heres' a clip of Mark's question and Ally's answer.
On October 23, Ally gave her standard Tea-Party-free stump speech at Christ the King Church. Afterwards while she was talking with members of the audience, someone asked if she was a Tea Party member. Ally's response: I never backed away from it. She said she's not currently a member of the Pima County Tea Party Patriots which she helped found — something about a problem with being a member of a nonprofit while running for office. Asked if she still supports the Tea Party principles, she said of course she does! It's Nancy Young Wright who wants to say Ally has backed away from her Tea Party affiliation, but that's just lies and politics.
So the lie isn't that Ally is a member of the Tea Party. It's that she's trying to back away from her attachment to the group. Yet she never talks about it unless she's in a safe, friendly environment.
A video for Nancy Young Wright's campaign begins, "To date, the far right Tea Party organization hasn't been able to infiltrate [Pima] County government. But that could all change if we as voters are not vigilant." Ally knows her extreme right wing position is why she won the primary, but it is her biggest liability in the general election.
You can watch Nancy Young Wright's video below the fold.
[Full disclosure: I volunteer for Nancy Young Wright's campaign. I'm also a paid-up member of the fact-based community.]
Pima County Election Integrity activists seek accurate audit of ballots
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Two election integrity events occured in Pima County on Friday.
First, the Pima County Election Integrity Commission held an emergency meeting on Friday at the request of one of its members, Mickey Duniho, a retired National Security Agency computer programmer, over concerns he had about a paper published by Francois Choquette (Aerospace Engineer, Statistics, California) and James Johnson (Senior Quantitative Financial Analyst, California), which outlined anomalies found throughout the United States in the Republican Presidential Primary that always favored Mitt Romney. The favoritism correlated strongly with precinct size, and did not correlate with any other logical choices (such as population density, income levels, race, etc).
The paper asked readers to confirm their analysis and report on their findings. Mickey Duniho analyzed the 2012 Presidential Preference Primary in Pima County and confirmed the analysis. Pima commission to discuss chance of election fraud in larger precincts:
[Duniho] was replicating earlier studies done by California researchers Francois Choquette and James Johnson, an aerospace engineer and a financial analyst. The researchers argue that their analysis of the recent Republican primary shows Mitt Romney making strange vote gains in most states' large precincts.
Duniho – formerly a Republican election observer in Maryland, a supporter of Democrat-backed lawsuits against Pima County's Elections Department and now a registered independent – said that his results seem to parallel those of Choquette and Johnson, who tried to account for their findings using demographics.
He is now collecting demographic data by precinct to try to explain his results with other factors, such as whether a precinct is rural or the affluence of the precinct's residents.
Duniho suspects that the patterns he found show a 10 percent flip of votes in favor of the Republican candidate in the 2010 race between Raúl Grijalva and Ruth McClung and the race between Gabrielle Giffords and Jesse Kelly the same year, as well as votes switched to benefit Romney in the Republican primary.
"The problem is figuring out what the statistical evidence does mean," Duniho said. "The computer is a black box. It is very easy for the guy who wrote the program to do just about anything."
At the emergency meeting on Friday, the Pima County Election Integrity Commission voted unanimously in favor of Mickey Duniho's recommendations to the Pima County Board of Supervisors, which must still act on the Commission recommendations.
Early Voting Month – Last Chance to Vote Early!
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Early voting runs from Thursday, October 11 to Friday, November 2, 2012. The Last day to request an early ballot by mail is Friday, October 26, 2012. There will be emergency voting on Saturday, November 3, 2012 at some locations, and Monday, November 5, 2012 only at the Downtown location.
PLEASE REMEMBER TO SIGN AND DATE THE AFFIDAVIT ENVELOPE before inserting it into the outer envelope for mailing. Your ballot cannot be counted without a signed and dated affidavit.
If you plan to vote at a voting location on Election Day, please verify your correct voting location before going to vote. See Pima County Recorder's Office or call the Recorder's Office at (520) 724-4330. You will need to show required ID. Pima County Elections Required Identification at the Polls.
Election Day is Tuesday, November 6, 2012.
Early Voting locations:
DOWNTOWN
Recorder’s Main Office
115 N. Church Ave.
520-724-4330
Located downtown in the historic
Old Pink Courthouse with the tiled dome
SITE OPEN: Thursday, 10/11/2012 through Friday 11/2/2012
Monday – Friday
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
EMERGENCY VOTING:
Saturday, 11/3/2012
9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Monday, 11/5/2012- Downtown Only
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
EASTSIDE
Recorder’s Eastside Annex
6920 E. Broadway Blvd., Suite D
520-724-4330
Located on the southwest corner of Broadway and Kolb Rd.
behind Bring’s Funeral Home
SITE OPEN: Thursday, 10/11/2012 through Friday 11/2/2012
Monday – Friday
8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
EMERGENCY VOTING:
Saturday, 11/3/2012
9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
New York Times endorses President Barack Obama
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The editorial board of the New York Times endorses President Barack Obama for reelection. Barack Obama for Re-Election (excerpt):
President Obama has shown a firm commitment to using government to help foster growth. He has formed sensible budget policies that are not dedicated to protecting the powerful, and has worked to save the social safety net to protect the powerless. Mr. Obama has impressive achievements despite the implacable wall of refusal erected by Congressional Republicans so intent on stopping him that they risked pushing the nation into depression, held its credit rating hostage, and hobbled economic recovery.
Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has gotten this far with a guile that allows him to say whatever he thinks an audience wants to hear. But he has tied himself to the ultraconservative forces that control the Republican Party and embraced their policies, including reckless budget cuts and 30-year-old, discredited trickle-down ideas. Voters may still be confused about Mr. Romney’s true identity, but they know the Republican Party, and a Romney administration would reflect its agenda. Mr. Romney’s choice of Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate says volumes about that.
We have criticized individual policy choices that Mr. Obama has made over the last four years, and have been impatient with his unwillingness to throw himself into the political fight. But he has shaken off the hesitancy that cost him the first debate, and he approaches the election clearly ready for the partisan battles that would follow his victory.
We are confident he would challenge the Republicans in the “fiscal cliff” battle even if it meant calling their bluff, letting the Bush tax cuts expire and forcing them to confront the budget sequester they created. Electing Mr. Romney would eliminate any hope of deficit reduction that included increased revenues.
In the poisonous atmosphere of this campaign, it may be easy to overlook Mr. Obama’s many important achievements, including carrying out the economic stimulus, saving the auto industry, improving fuel efficiency standards, and making two very fine Supreme Court appointments.
