Immigration

Meet Sydney Hay, Republican Lobbyist and Ideologue Seeking to Fill Tricky Dick Renzi’s Purloined Shoes

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Mining industry lobbyist and candidate for Congress in CD 1, Sydney Hay put together a very nice introductory video for her campaign. It illustrates very clearly why the GOP won’t manage to hang on to CD 1: they are absolutely bereft of ideas.

Hay’s campaign looks like it was cobbled together out of most extreme rantings and wacky policies of the Right over the past 20 years, the dissicated corpses of Reagan and Goldwater, and the most disingenuous and empty rhetoric the Right has fallen back on in defense of the massive failures of the Bush years, all held together by a ‘values’ appeal that already passé among evangelicals and fundamentalists, let alone the general public.

You can always tell when a social movement is effectively dead by how nostalgic its members become about a claimed Golden Age. In the case of the Conservative Movement, their necromantic rites centering around Reagan and Goldwater are increasingly elaborate, central to their religion, and frankly pitiful.

Sure, we Democrats have our culture heroes—FDR, JRK, RFK, MLK—but we aren’t nearly so strident about hearkening back to their particular strain of liberalism as a lost Golden Age that we must return to, and to which our politicians must pay obsequious obescience.

That’s because Liberalism is alive and kicking and growing. Conservatism is a dead and discredited credo, destroyed by Bush and the Republican Congress of 1994-2006, now seeking a leader who can revivify it with a fresh perspective and newly invigorated values. That leader doesn’t seem to be Sydney Hay—she’s too ideologically rigid to acknowledge any new ideas.

I was really amused by the enthusiastic and detailed endorsement by Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks. Since the incumbent is in the dock, Renzi can’t exactly pass the establishment torch, so Trent from next door is pinch-hitting. It should prove amusing to watch the Republican candidates in CD 1 madly scramble to avoid any association with Renzi.

Trent credits Sydney with a number of key accomplishments. He indicates she lead the campaign to require a super-majority for any tax increase in Arizona. The result has been to ratchet down tax rates permanently, destroying the Arizona state government’s ability to fund essential services. Trent tells us that Sydney, a former teacher, also was largely responsible for the failed experiment of charter schools, and for diverting taxes to private and parochial schools.

Polices Sydney claims credit for have over the last two decades been largely responsible for Arizona’s free-fall to nearly the bottom among U.S. states in almost every educational metric. With accomplishments like these in her past, electing her to office is sure to result in policies that will make us even more backward, poor, and uncompetitive.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the ‘ideas’ Sydney wants to take to Congress…

Giffords and Mitchell: The New Center? Let’s Hope Not… UPDATED!

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NATIONAL JOURNAL: "The New Center"

National Journal is getting a lot of ink locally (e.g., here and here) due to their ranking the ideology of many of 2006’s frosh congresscritters, including Arizona’s Gabby Giffords and Harry Mitchell, smack dab near the center of the political spectrum.

When you take a closer look at the actual votes on which National Journal based their ratings, however, what they actually seem to be measuring is mostly how two key issues – Iraq and immigration – are causing some Democrats to throw out their principles in the name of expediency and poorly-judged pragmatism.

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Note: The headings stand for Economy, Social,  and Foreign policy.

A closer analysis of the fairly small sample of bills upon which the rankings are based indicates that in most respects Giffords and Mitchell both generally hew closely to the party line on most issues other than immigration and Iraq. The moderate nature of both candidates is largely a feature of their shared (and mistaken, in my view) hands-off approach to the war in Iraq, and their perceived need to armor themselves against the immigration fire-fight in Arizona.

Giffords is not ranked as notably more "economically moderate" than, say, Rep. Ed Pastor – at least in terms of her actual votes. She has not been nearly as much of an economic conservative in her votes to date as her overall centrist ranking, and her membership in the Blue Dogs, might suggest.

What Mitchell champions, however, is clearly out of step with most of his caucus – not surprising considering he too made a bid to join the Blue Dogs. What is surprising is that his rhetoric, and to a lesser extent his votes, actually indicates that he is much more in tune with conservative tax philosophy (coddle the rich and soak the middle class), yet it was Giffords who got the nod from the Blue Dogs. Maybe Mitchell’s tax rhetoric put him too far to the right even for the Blue Dog’s comfort. In the end, I think that Mitchell’s ranking as a ‘moderate’ on economic matters, is rather too generous. He actually deserves to be in amongst the Republicans proper when you take into account his advocacy, as well as his votes.

UPDATE 3/14/08: Mitchell has made it two years in a row now that he has voted against his own party’s budget. If he’s trying to establish his fiscal conservative credentials, I think he’s more than done the job.

Despite their fairly middle-of-the-road rankings in social policy, neither member is sending many overt signals to the ‘values voters’. They do score considerably more conservative than other Dems in the Arizona delegation and the Caucus overall, but that is almost entirely down to votes having to do with immigration and immigrant rights.

The big difference between ‘social centrists’ like Gabby and Harry and the rest of the caucus is how terrified they are of creating a record that can be characterized as ‘pro-immigrant.’ The callousness and pettiness that these ‘centrists’ will stoop to in order to avoid giving racists and xenophobes any ammunition is often farcical.

On foreign policy, both members score more conservatively than their Arizona Democratic delegation-mates, but that is predominantly down to their votes on Iraq. Their score also includes a few instances when their urge to throw money at a military system outstripped any fiscal restraint or desire to look deeper at our actual strategic needs – a common and unfortunate Democratic habit that our members default to in order to forestall being labeled as anti-military, but that results in massive pork and a flabby, wasteful military.

I will take a closer look at the particular votes that earned Giffords and Mitchell their milquetoasty middle-of-the-herd street cred after the flip, and consider how well-deserved are their carefully-crafted, centrist images…

 

Tim Bee’s Big Surprise

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Tim Bee stunned the Arizona political scene with a completely unexpected announcement that he is challenging Gabby Giffords for the CD 8 Congressional seat.

Seriously, though, Tim made it official — he’s in. I know, I was there. And, no, I didn’t get tazed, Bro.

It was the kind of non-news news event one expects in the kabuki dance of American politics. But there were a few interesting bits.

Much more after the flip…

Sponsors Back-Pedalling on Employer Sanctions

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Elephantfight
Link: Employer sanctions law challenged by sponsors.

Looks like a number of Republicans are getting crosswise on the employer sanctions law now that it has taken effect and real enforcement actions seem imminent, threatening to put good, upstanding (and possibly Republican) businessmen on skid row.

This issue just screams DEMOCRATIC WEDGE ISSUE FOR 2008 STATE LEGISLATIVE RACES at the top of its lungs. I hope it’s not too much longer before every other word coming out of the Arizona Democratic Party’s mouth-piece is "employer sanctions." You don’t get monumental political fuck-ups like this dropped in your lap every day, you know.

Much more after the flip…

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ Self-Promotion and Unethical Electioneering

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Andrew Thomas, who is up for re-election this November, is again doing what he seems to be best at (other than blatantly harassing the media should they criticize him): pushing the ethical envelope to serve his political ambitions and ideological viewpoint.

He distributed a crime prevention booklet to Maricopa residents (Download the booklet) through the distribution networks of local newspapers (at an as-yet undisclosed cost to taxpayers) without any notice to, or specific funding from the Maricopa Board of Supervisors.

Deanne Poulos, the communications director for the board of
supervisors, said the members were not told about the project and only
found out after the booklets were distributed Friday morning. “At this
time we’re still searching for a funding source,” she said. [E.V. Tribune]

Nor is this the first time that Thomas has blatantly used taxpayer money to get his name prominently before the voters of Maricopa. "Recently, Thomas has been criticized for spending $2.5 million in
public money since he took office in 2005 to pay for public service
advertisements that promote his name." [E.V. Tribune]

Most recently, Thomas kicked off an anti-DUI billboard campaign where
his name is splashed in a broad red strip with large lettering across
the bottom. The letters used for Thomas’ name are nearly as large as
the letters in the board’s message.[E.V. Tribune]

Let me make perfectly clear that I think the idea of a County Attorney issuing a crime prevention guide is laudable and forward-thinking. To the extent that the purpose and effect of this publication is to reduce crime, I applaud and credit CA Thomas for publishing it.

But the devil lies in the details, as always…