Buz Mills quits the race

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Buz Mills appeared to have all the right stuff to be a contender in the GOP primary for governor in the current GOP political environment. He is a political outsider, not a career politician. He is a fiscal conservative who drinks the Kool-Aid of supply-side trickle-down economics by the gallon and is an adherent of Grover Norquist's "drown the baby in the bathtub" plot to end government. He is a board member of the NRA, hell he even operates his own shooting range. And he is a multi-millionaire who can fund his own campaign (on which he has spent over $3 million).

"I coulda been a contender!"

What Buz Mills did not count on is Jan Brewer's relationship with Sen. Russell Pearce. This demagogue of hate-based legislation taught Jan Brewer the secrets to the dark arts of his success: scapegoat a minority group who cannot vote and demagogue them to death — literally if not just figuratively. Jan Brewer chirped, "I can do that!"

Like Anakin Skywalker was turned to the dark side under the influence of Palpatine to become Darth Vader, Jan Brewer has turned to the dark side under the influence of demagogue master Russell Pearce.

Only this isn't science fiction. This story has real life consequences.

On Tuesday, Mills up and quit. Mills withdraws from GOP governor race. His statement made some important points:

Mills, in a prepared statement, said he entered the race hoping to offer voters an alternative to "career politicians'' who believe in more spending and higher taxes.

"Under normal circumstances strong fiscal conservatives do well in Republican primary contests,'' Mills wrote.

* * *

[Mills] said the debate over illegal immigration has made this anything other than normal circumstances.

"SB 1070 has regrettably taken the focus off of job creation and fixing the state budget,'' Mills said in his statement.

* * *

"So even though the chasm between Brewer's (economic) policies and mine is dramatic, SB 1070 has politically mitigated those issues,'' Mills wrote.

What Mills is saying is that SB 1070 has sucked all the oxygen out of the room for any discussion of the serious problems facing Arizona: a depressed economy and the fiscal mismanagement of this state.

Jan Brewer cannot succeed as a demagogue on her own. It takes a complicit news media to allow her to focus attention on SB 1070 rather than to hold her accountable for her actions and inaction as governor.

I suspect the news media in this state have not personally experienced, and therefore do not fully appreciate, the dark forces that can be unleashed when a demagogue is allowed to run wild with the public's fears and imagination, unchecked by the "fourth estate." The media has an obligation to arrest this cancerous growth before it can spread and it becomes terminal.

Jan Brewer has been a miserable failure as governor. She has failed her constitutional duty to enact a balanced budget by July 1 two years in a row; the current budget is in deficit (and growing). This is a first in the history of Arizona. The "stimulus plan" to create jobs that Brewer promised upon succeeding to the governorship never materialized. She only belatedly formed a commission to study ideas to create new jobs. (I guess the commission members are counted as "new jobs"). And she turned to conservative ideology to suspend regulations "to attract new business" to Arizona.

New business in not coming to a state engaged in reckless fiscal mismanagement of the state's finances and that is openly hostile to public education and its universities. Arizona lacks an educated and skilled work force of any interest to business as a result of these policies. New business is not coming to a state where demagogue politicians predominate and engage in reckless hyperbole about Arizona being "under attack" from drug cartels and its citizens are being "kidnapped" and "decapitated" in its deserts. New business is not coming to Arizona in a climate of fear that its business will be targeted for having hired Latino workers (or any other minority or foreign national for that matter). If an "illegal" worker slips through the background check, the business can lose its business license and its investment in Arizona. There are no incentives for new business to come to Arizona.

Brewer, true to character, was less than gracious to Buz Mills because he did not openly endorse her candidacy. "Buz, feel the power of the force" (as she crushes his throat):

Brewer, in her own prepared response, said Mills remains off base in his criticism of her.

She said economic recovery is underway in Arizona. And she took credit for that, saying she has reduced state spending while doing what she can to protect funding for education and public safety.

"Certainly, more work needs to be done,'' Brewer said in her statement. "And a united Republican Party will provide the leadership to provide Arizona a better future.''

The queen of making up shit is at it again. Let's dissect this B.S. statement. There is no economic recovery in Arizona. The economic slide into the abyss has been halted by federal stimulus funds — you know, that "Obama socialism" that Brewer initially toyed with the idea of rejecting on ideological grounds before she accepted the stimulus funds — for which she now wants to claim credit. Hypocrite. The federal stimulus funds are scheduled to expire next year; then what? And Brewer protected funding for education and public safety? Both of these items have incurred substantial budget cuts, and more budget cuts are slated for the future.

Jan Brewer spoke at a tourism conference in Tucson on Tuesday. In an interview Brewer lays out her vision for AZ, Jan Brewer unwittingly showed her hand on what she meant by "more work needs to be done":

"We're going to continue working . . . in regards to some type of restructuring of taxes here in Arizona, some type of tax reform. . . . It could be a variation of a lot of different things, but the bottom line is it needs to be something we can afford.

"Tax reform" to Republicans is dog-whistle code for corporate tax cuts. Remember the $950 million corporate welfare tax-giveaway plan of House Speaker Kirk Adams (that he laughingly referred to as a jobs creation bill – HB2250) from earlier this year that Gov. Brewer would not agree to before the election? Corporate welfare tax give-away plan passes Senate Finance Committee; Trouble 'Brewering' over corporate welfare tax give-away package; Smells like teen petulance: Adams pulls his corporate welfare tax give-away plan; Corporate welfare tax give-away plan defeated in Arizona Senate (for now). Brewer is blowing the dog-whistle signaling to the Kool-Aid drinking supply-side trickle-down GOP economics true believers that she will entertain their corporate welfare tax-giveaway plan after the election, should she be elected.

In order to pay for the corporate welfare tax-giveaway (which Republicans will call "job creation"), more draconian spending cuts in the budget will be required. That one-cent sales tax increase you approved 2-1 in May to save public education in Arizona? If Brewer is governor and Republicans control the legislature, they will shift funds in a slight-of-hand to use the sales tax revenue to cover the front-end cost of the corporate welfare tax-giveaway. The sales tax is only temporary. But the corporate tax cuts are ostensibly "permanent" because of Arizona's two-thirds super-majority requirement to raise taxes or to eliminate or reduce tax credits and exemptions. This means more draconian budget cuts to pay for the corporate welfare tax-giveaway in subsequent years.

Grover Norquist's wet dream of "drowning the baby in the bathtub" may be realized.

It is in the hands of you, the voters, to throw these ideological extremist Republicans out of office.