Michael Bryan

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.
Blog for Arizona

Blog for Arizona Has New Look, Improved Functionality

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ColumnTopBlog for Arizona– Arizona’s longest running and most prolific political blog– has transitioned into the modern era of mobile communication with a new look and greater functionality on Word Press.

Nearly 20,000 blog posts by 11 authors have been transported from TypePad to Word Press– a gargantuan task. Special thanks to Dave Safier (who was with Blog for Arizona when we started this project) who worked with TypePad, Word Press, and Go Daddy on the technical aspect of the transfer. I worked with Safier and BfAZ founder Michael Bryan to create the new masthead and the HTML for some of the features. (If you knew how long it has been since I coded HTML and how little I know of CCS, you’d be really impressed. I want to add a special shout out to the technical support offered by WordPress.org.)

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Senator Melvin Courageously Stands Up For Ignorance

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By Tom Prezelski

Re-Posted from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

There is actually a pretty vigorous debate over Common Core Standards and many legitimate questions over to what extent, or even if, they should be implemented. It is a debate that needs to happen, and one that should be conducted with rigor, integrity, and an eye toward our future needs as a community, state, and nation.

Cotton_hillOf course, this is not the sort of debate that is happening in the Arizona Legislature, thanks largely to Senator Al Melvin (R-Segregated Gated Retirement Community North of Town). Melvin's SB 1310, which passed a Senate Committee yesterday, bans the implementation of Common Core in Arizona. The Senator's stated reason for his opposition cited no specifics, merely that the standards were a good idea from "the private sector and the governors" that got "hijacked by Washington." In other words, the merits of the standards are less of an issue than the fact that they are being championed by The Big Bad Black Man.

Statehood Day: Ten Great Arizonans You Have Never Heard Of

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By Tom Prezelski

Originally posted to Rum Romanism and Rebellion

It is statehood day, so I wanted to write something special. This was written a few years ago and posted in a few different places. I was going to re-visit this list, but I decided that I still like my choices, since you still have not heard of most of these. My call to the reader to feel free to take issue with this list still stands.


February 14th is, among other things, Statehood Day in Arizona. This means that someone, somewhere, will publish the inevitable “greatest Arizonans who ever lived” or “people/events that changed Arizona” lists in newspapers or blogs. The results of these lists are predictable. They nearly always, for instance, include Barry Goldwater. I have nothing against Goldwater’s inclusion, but the late Senator is a little like the Beatles; yeah they were great; yes, things are different because of what they did, but that does not mean that they are not over-rated.

So I am making my own list. This list will not include easy choices like Goldwater, Kino and Poston, names which should already be familiar to most readers. Instead, I take this opportunity to highlight some of the individuals whose names should be familiar, but have instead slipped into relative obscurity despite their role in shaping the Arizona we all know and love.

My standards in making this list are fairly simple. First, the named individual must no longer be alive and must have no institutions, streets, towns, parks, or substantial monuments named for them. Naturally, the individual must have made a lasting, positive contribution to Arizona during their lifetime regardless of the length of their residency in the state. This last one is, of course, highly subjective, and I will have to admit not only to my geographic bias as a Tucsonan but also my political bias as a Democrat. Anyone who has an issue with one of my choices, or someone I did not choose, should feel free to make these views known.

Carolyn’s Community Comes to Blog For Arizona

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By Michael Bryan Following the shut-down of The Citizen website, many great bloggers found themselves without a home. One voice that we could not let fall silent was Carolyn Classen, who has been doing a tireless job of informing the Tucson community. We reached out to Carolyn to see if she was willing to keep … Read more