CD 8 Conventional Wisdom Changes

So that’s it for Graf. With the revelation about his spectacularly poor judgement in his professional associations, Graf’s grassroots hate-fest is going down in flames. Oh, he’ll twitch for bit yet, but he’s pretty much done. Stick a fork in him. I almost feel sorry for him, but God, who the hell hires a fucking political campaign director without any due diligence? A moron with terrible judgement and no capacity for leading anything but a caddy around the links, that’s who. Good riddance.

I can’t say I’m surprised that Graf stepped on his dick; it was really just a matter of time. I am surprised at the spectacularly hypocritical features of the story. I can see the negative ads now:

Postage for direct mailing – $752.34
Catering for major fundraising party – $4,290.00
Putting Chester the Molester who served felony-league time for sex with teenage girls in charge of your campaign – Priceless

It’s good that this happened a few months out from the primary; the Conventional Wisdom among Democrats that Graf had a hope in hell of winning the GOP nomination will finally die. It was always delusional that even primary Republican voters would be so self-destructive.

Huffman is going to be the nominee. That much has been clear from the moment he threw his hat into the ring. It was confirmed by his first quarter of fundraising, and now the deal is sealed by Graf’s kiddy-diddling manager. Heck, we should have known he had a predilection for hanging out with scoff-laws from this picture in which he’s hanging out with a supporter who is flagrantly violating the U.S. flag code (little pun).

It’s long past time that Democrats face up to the fact that the CD 8 race will be no cakewalk run against a foaming at the mouth racist lout with a bottle of hair shellac and used-car salesman smile. This is going to be a battle royale with a saavy centrist (for Arizona) Republican establishment boychick with more money than us – hell, with more money than any candidate Southern Arizona has ever seen. The only race that is likely to be more expensive this cycle is the Kyl-Pederson match, and I’m including the Governor’s race in that calculation. The RCCC is going to be pouring major moolah into this race, and the independent expenditure will be even larger.

Far better that we got the news now, when we are still in position to react to it constructively, rather than be stunned by the obvious a month out from the general. Now we can put aside the wishful thinking a gird our loins for a serious battle with a serious candidate.