Michael founded BlogForArizona.net as the Howard Dean presidential campaign blog for Arizona in 2003, and has been blogging ever since. The Blog is now coming up on 20 years of continuous publication, a major achievement for any political blog, which usually have the life-spans of mayflies.
Michael is an attorney living in Tucson with his wife Lauren. In 2008, Michael remade BlogForArizona into a collaborative project. Michael is now but one of the contributors to the blog and provides editorial and publishing direction in consultation with the Board of Directors and the other authors.
If you want to keep up with the latest Arizona and National political news in an entertaining quick hit of news and opinion, check out the BlogForArizona twitter feed, which Mike largely curates and writes. Michael is also an AAPC member who occassionally consults on political campaigns, strategy and communications.
Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood’s political organization announced that Arizona’s Senate race would be one of its top eight priorities in the nation. Today, they disclosed their first $1.1M have been spent on digital advertising and canvassing. Planned Parenthood Votes is spending $600,000 to set up in-house canvassing operations with main offices in Tucson, Phoenix and … Read more
With no time to lose, the national DCCC spent $122k the day after the primary on an ad opposing Republican nominee Lea Marquez Peterson in southern Arizona’s competitive CD2. We do not yet have a copy of the TV ad, just the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s FEC disclosure of the expenditure. Marquez Peterson is facing … Read more
Kyrsten Sinema supports “sanctuary cities”, according to a new – and major – ad buy from One Nation hitting the airwaves today. That news might come as a surprise to many Arizonans. They remember a couple of years ago when the Congresswoman was one of just six Democrats to vote for a House bill to bar communities from receiving federal law enforcement monies if they refused to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
One Nation is a GOP Super PAC that has ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and heavyweight political consultant Karl Rove. It does not disclose its contributors, and is not divulging how much money it is spending on the ad posted below.* However, it purchased $93,000 worth of ad time on one Phoenix station (KPNX) alone.
The ad notes that Sinema voted twice last year against an amendment and a bill that would have penalized the cities (none in Arizona). Neither of those measures have been considered by the Senate. And, the ad closes by urging you to contact Sinema and ask her to vote for a similar measure recently proposed by members of the Freedom Caucus.
However, it does not mention that Sinema crossed the aisle to vote for the first such measure in 2015 – derisively referred to by one Democrat as “the Donald Trump Act” because it was rushed to the floor shortly after the then-candidate used the killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco to define his campaign.
Welcome back to your Feed for the Week! Slip off your shoes and strap on the feedbag! It’s time for some Feed…
First, the last message to the American people from an icon:
“My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for sixty years, and especially my fellow Arizonans,
Thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office has allowed me to lead. I have tried to serve our country honorably. I have made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them.
I have often observed that I am the luckiest person on earth. I feel that way even now as I prepare for the end of my life. I have loved my life, all of it. I have had experiences, adventures and friendships enough for ten satisfying lives, and I am so thankful. Like most people, I have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life, in good or bad times, for the best day of anyone else’s.
I owe that satisfaction to the love of my family. No man ever had a more loving wife or children he was prouder of than I am of mine. And I owe it to America. To be connected to America’s causes – liberty, equal justice, respect for the dignity of all people – brings happiness more sublime than life’s fleeting pleasures. Our identities and sense of worth are not circumscribed but enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.
‘Fellow Americans’ – that association has meant more to me than any other. I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world. We have helped liberate more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. We have acquired great wealth and power in the process.
We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.
We are three-hundred-and-twenty-five million opinionated, vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country we will get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before. We always do.
Ten years ago, I had the privilege to concede defeat in the election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with the heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully that evening.
I feel it powerfully still.
Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.
Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you, and God bless America.”
A video of a farewell from a friend: Sen. Jeff Flake eulogizes Sen. John McCain on the Senate floor…
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Kiley today denied an effort by an APS-backed effort – along with the Chamber of Commerce and some lawmakers – to knock the Clean Energy initiative off of the November ballot. An APS representative has already indicated that an appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court is coming.
(The 33 page ruling is published in full below.)
After a five-day trial, Judge Kiley found that most of the challenges by Arizonans for Affordable Energy were not proven and/or appropriate. The group had claimed that only 22% of the submitted signatures should be considered valid, which would have left Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona considerably short of the 225k signature threshold.
