Larry Bodine

Larry is an intelligent, articulate, and insightful commentator whose views are shaped by a combination of journalism, entrepreneurship, law practice, and leadership.‎ ✍ He is an experienced leader, having served as Chair of the LD18 Democrats, and President of the Democrats of Greater Tucson, a teacher at the UA Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and Video Manager for Iskashitaa Refugee Network, ‎ ✍ A common-sense business leader, he operated a successful marketing consultancy for 20 years. He is skilled in fundraising, artificial intelligence, and online communications.‎ ✍He considers multiple viewpoints before forming an opinion. His ethos is the Boy Scout Law.‎ ✍ Larry is a lifelong writer, having worked as a seven-time award-winning journalist for the New York Daily News and as the author of 600 articles for the Blog for Arizona.‎ ✍He is a graduate of Amherst College and Seton Hall Law School and has also attended the University of Munich in Germany.‎ ✍He is not all work and no play. Larry enjoys singing and playing the guitar, hiking Tucson's beautiful trails, going on outings with his Portuguese Water Dog, weight training, and meeting his many friends for breakfast.‎ ‎** Scroll down to see my articles below. **

New Poll: Sinema and McSally in Statistical Tie in US Senate Race

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  • Sinema leads McSally, 48-44 percent, an improvement for McSally from 48-42 percent in June, but still behind for a red state. This is within the 4% margin of error of the poll.
  • Sinema leads Arpaio by a huge margin at 54-36 percent (+18). Sinema also has a double-digit lead against Ward; 51-41 percent (+10).
  • McSally holds an eight-point lead over Ward; 20-point lead over Arpaio.

A new poll from OH Predictive Insights of Phoenix, Arizona has put Representative Martha McSally in the lead of the Republican primary, but continuing to trail in the general election to Representative Kyrsten Sinema. The poll also finds that Republicans struggle with moderate voters and their disapproval of President Donald Trump. They believe this continues to hurt their chances in the Senate race as opinions of the President become more polarized.

Arizona’s OH Predictive Insights and ABC15 Arizona (OHPI/ABC15) teamed up to find out who is currently winning the Senate race and why.

“The Arizona Senate contest is tightening and expect the attacks to ramp up as we head closer to election day,” said Mike Noble, managing partner and chief pollster at OH Predictive Insights, a Phoenix-based research polling company. “We have a better chance of finding a photo of Sheriff Joe Arpaio wearing pink underwear and eating green bologna than to see him as the next elected Senator of Arizona.”

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Blog for Arizona

John C. Scott Radio Show Talks with Writer Larry Bodine

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The John C. Scott Political Forum – 1030 KVOI AM https://johncscottshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/JCS-07-21-18-Hr1.mp3 Radio broadcaster John C. Scott interviewed Blog for Arizona writer Larry Bodine recently about: Candidate Yahya Yuksel staying in the race Negative ads by Ann Kirkpatrick vs. Matt Heinz. Bill Kovacs is a sexy beast. Mary Matiella – will Latinos and seniors vote for … Read more

Disgraced Candidate Yahya Yuksel Still Promoting Bizarre Candidacy for CD2 Congress Seat

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Yahya Yuksel
At a July 14 press conference, Yahya Yuksel announced he will stay in the race despite rape allegations which he tried to cover up. An angry crowd of 35 rape survivors and other women chanted “Shame on You!”

Candidate Yahya Yuksel persists in a bizarre campaign for the CD2 Congressional seat in Tucson — ignoring repeated calls for him to drop out of the race, disavowment by the Pima County Democratic Party, and cancellations of invitations from Democrats of Greater Tucson and Represent Me AZ.

Read Accused Rapist Yahya Yuksel Must Drop Out Now

Yuksel sent a broadcast email on July 26:

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Joel Fineman, Pima County Public Defender

Joel Feinman’s Simple Solution to Ending Mass Incarceration

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Lynching in America continued from the 1920s up to 1980, according to Pima County Public Defender Joel Feinman.

Arizona incarcerates a higher percentage of the population than South Africa did during apartheid. “We are not the land of free and home of brave as long as that statistic is true,” said Pima County Public Defender Joel Feinman.

He spoke recently at a program on mass incarceration sponsored by the Arizona Ground Game (TAGG), a grass-roots Progressive organization that encourages active citizenship through neighborhood building.

“Mass incarceration is a long and ugly story, a bloody and racist tour of where we’ve been,” he said. “The good news is that mass incarceration is actually one of easiest political problems to solve.”

Plea bargains

Part of the problem is the universal use of plea agreements to end criminal cases. In 2013, 97% of criminal cases in the federal system were resolved by plea bargains.

“The average sentence for federal narcotics defendants with a plea agreement is  5 years,” Feinman said. “For defendants who went to trial, the average sentence was 16 years — more than 3 times the years in prison because they chose to exercise their constitutional right under the 6th amendment to have a trial by jury.”

Plea bargains are an unfair contract, where the prosecutor (the Pima County Attorney) has all the bargaining power and the defendant has none. “The criminal justice system is more interested in moving cases along than dispensing justice,” he said. “As a result, you get the highest incarceration rate and the highest number of people in prison. The judge is not the most powerful person, not the jury, not our state representatives or congress people — it is your local prosecutor. They are by far the most powerful person in the criminal justice system.”

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Kovacs Shines and Kirkpatrick Gets Booed at CD2 Congressional Candidates Forum

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Candidates Billy Kovacs, Mary Matiella, Matt Heinz, Barbara Sherry, Bruce Wheeler, and Ann Kirkpatrick.
Candidates Billy Kovacs, Mary Matiella, Matt Heinz, Barbara Sherry, Bruce Wheeler, and Ann Kirkpatrick.

The CD2 Congressional candidate forum on July 19 was a classic Democratic assembly, with at least 450 attendees including hecklers, cheering and booing, and horrendous audio.

The PAC RepresentMeAZ organized the event at Tucson High School and gave out report cards about the candidates. The results will be posted soon on Facebook. At the last event, Bruce Wheeler was the crowd favorite, and I’m guessing this time it may be Billy Kovacs.

Sure enough, Billy Kovacs was the audience favorite at the July 19th candidate forum. Second place went to the winner of our last Forum, Bruce Wheeler. candidate report card

Kovacs, Maria Matiella, Bruce Wheeler, Barbara Sherry and Matt Heinz staked out ultra-progressive positions, leaving a beleaguered and defensive Ann Kirkpatrick as the odd person out.

Highlights:

  • All the candidates agreed to support the winner of the August 28 primary. Mail-in ballots will be sent to voters on August 1.
  • The audience groaned as Kirkpatrick and Heinz sniped at each other. See videos and attack ads in the comments section at https://goo.gl/6QtjfH. I have no tolerance for candidates who go negative against fellow Democrats.
  • All the candidates supported federal legalization of marijuana except Kirkpatrick. Why, Ann, why must weed be outlawed as a Schedule 1 drug?
  • The candidates — except for Kirkpatrick — took the radical, left-wing position to abolish ICE, the internal immigration enforcement agency. Arizona Star columnist Tim Steller called this “a loser of a political position.”
  • All but Kirkpatrick supported Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, for calling the president’s remarks “cowardly and shameful” when he bowed to Putin.
  • Regarding impeaching the president, supporters were Kovacs, Matiella, Sherry, and Kirkpatrick — but not Heinz or Wheeler.
  • Most of the candidates wore teal ribbons for Sexual Assualt Awareness.

Who can beat the Republican?

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