Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com
AZ Attorney General Tom Horne’s prospects continue to plummet, with today’s news that Rep. Matt Salmon has asked him to withdraw his bid for reelection. Horne would certainly save himself some money and embarrassment if he did but, at this point, it really doesn’t matter what Tom Horne does because he is not going to win that primary. While much is made of GOP primaries being used to punish incumbents for not being ideologically pure enough, those kinds of primaries rarely succeed out of safe red districts. Tom Horne, on the other hand, is being primaried because he’s a pompous idiot who made a series of dumb mistakes after eking out a win against Felicia Rotellini (by almost 4 points but it was 2010 so that counts as “eking”). He’s made the mistakes that would enable Rotellini to defeat him easily. So, obviously, they need to get rid of him now.
This is similar to Nancy Barto knocking Ray Barnes out of the Senate in 2010 after Barnes said things about women and bathrooms and whatnot that were too batshit even for Arizona Republicans or to Sen. Rick Murphy, who is about to lose his seat to Rep. Debbie Lesko, who was hastily recruited when allegations of child abuse surfaced against him. Note that this type of primary is used simply to remove an incumbent who will have a hard time getting reelected due to personal foibles. There is no ideological consideration whatsoever. Barto was every bit as right wing as Barnes, as is Lesko vis a vis Murphy. It’s just like replacing like. But since Horne is a statewide incumbent, some people might be tempted to think that the Not Tom Horne candidate, Mark Brnovich, is more moderate than Horne because some people are so desperately fixated on “moderate Republicans” that they project that label rather indiscriminately. But let’s peruse Brnovich’s campaign site to see why it would be wrong to assume that:
Man, that’s some straight up angry-birther-uncle-email right there. Plus, is he pretending to be shocked that top prosecutors pick and choose what cases they assign or does he really not understand that is the whole point of the job? Not looking good on the “moderate” front thus far. Let’s move on to the other issues.
Yep, as you might expect, Not Tom Horne is all about being Sheriff Of Your Uterus. Pretty gross how he weaves the CPS crisis into his obsession with zygotes like that but what might even be worse is how he would deal with the problem at CPS. He seems far more interested in punishing caseworkers than in seeing that the investigations are done and that abused and neglected children are helped. As for the “Restore Integrity” part, there are some definite dog whistles to the religious fundamentalist base there. So, ultimately, we have to conclude that Not Tom Horne is every bit the radical reactionary that Tom Horne is and continue to stress the need to elect Felicia Rotellini.
I put Not Tom Horne’s issues page as screen shots because hard right stances on things like abortion have a way of “disappearing” from Republican candidate sites once the general election has begun. Watch that space.
Mark “I’d like to buy a vowel” Brnovich is also a Neo-Confederate Tenther who wants to use the AG’s office to sue the federal guvmint for his political agenda, which I assure you is not in the job description for AG. http://www.svherald.com/content/matt-hickman/2014/05/06/375517
Brnovich said he would do a better job than Horne of fighting against, what he calls, “federal overreach.”
“(Our attorney general) has to make sure we’re asserting our rights under the 10th Amendment,” Brnovich said. “Radicals in the Obama Administration are imposing on our state sovereignty.”
Specifically, Brnovich pointed to the federal government’s efforts to discourage coal production and usage, which, he said, hurts Arizonans.
“If EPA rules and regulations (encroach on state’s rights), you’ve got to be suing them,” Brnovich said. “The left has been doing that for decades, using the courts to fight battles.”
Brnovich said he’s pursuing the role of the state’s highest law enforcement official out of an obligation to “protect the most vulnerable in our society.” [As you point out, that’s code for anti-abortion crusader.]
Improving the efficacy of Child Protective Services is among Brnovich’s chief priorities, as is fighting Mexican drug cartels.
As for marijuana, Brnovich said Arizona shouldn’t be in a hurry to legalize.
“Legislators and governors, they make the rules,” he said. “But I’m also a big believer that states are labs of democracy. Colorado and Washington are doing (legalization), but I don’t see any need to rush in Arizona. Let’s see what happens in Colorado. Let’s take some time to separate the facts from the noise.”