by David Safier
I already posted about the bizarre scene on Thursday's Bill Buckmaster show (Mark Evans hosting) where Ally Miller denied being a Tea Partier, calling such allegations "horrible stories" and "name calling." She has her own page on the Tea Party Patriots' website, for God's sake!
It looks like distrust concerning things Ally says and does is beginning to mount up.
Jim Nintzel has practically created a cottage industry debunking Ally's accusation that $345 million in Highway Funds (HURF) were misappropriated and are unaccounted for in Pima County (It's Falsehood No. 1 in Nintzel's feature article, We Call B.S.: Four big lies in this year's county-supervisor races). The money, according to Nintzel, "was actually used to pay for the expenses of the county's transportation department, which is the normal practice of jurisdictions around the state." So much for Ally's much-touted accounting background. When Ally complained about Nintzel's reporting on the issue during a primary debate, candidate Mike Hellon replied, no matter what you happen to think of Nintzel, what he wrote is true. But Ally is sticking to her story.
Ally may think Nintzel is just another member of the liberal lamestream media (she says she will never talk to him again), but he's not the one who filed a complaint with Pima County that Ally violated campaign laws. That would be candidates Stuart McDaniel and Mike Hellon. They say both Ally and Mitch Stallard, who ran independent ads supporting Ally's campaign, used Tagline Media, which is a too-close-for-comfort connection between the two. Independent expenditure campaigns have to maintain a high wall of separation between their work and the candidate's. Ally says it's all perfectly legit. Even if the complaint is dismissed, the McDaniel/Hellon move indicates that, at a time when the primaries are over and candidates who ran for the same office in the same party usually have a group hug, the distrust between Ally and her former political rivals is palpable.
That distrust extends to Ally's oft-repeated claim that she brought the wrath of the FBI down on Rio Nuevo by writing a letter to the FBI. In Nintzel's We Call B.S. feature, he debunked the claim in Falsehood #4:
We're supposed to believe that the FBI took no notice of months of investigative reporting in the Arizona Daily Star, but a letter from a Tea Party activist got the G-men to spring into action?
To the extent that the FBI is involved in any kind of Rio Nuevo investigation—which has been going on an awfully long time with no criminal complaints—it's because the agency was asked by the Arizona attorney general to lend some talent in forensic accounting.
The idea that Miller's letter somehow brought in the FBI is akin to believing that wet pavement causes rain.
Ally could claim that's just Nintzel going after her, except that Mike Hellon (who apparently is not overly fond of his recent opponent) mentioned her claim in a mailer, "Voter Alert: Ally Miller Fact Check."
[Ally Miller] GOT THE FBI TO INVESTIGATE RIO NUEVO . . . FALSE!
[Rio Nuevo] Board member Rick Grinnell says: "I can't discuss what the Rio Nuevo Board considered in executive session, but I can tell you flat out that it was not Ally Miller who got the investigation going…"
Rick Grinnell, if you remember, is a Republican who ran for Mayor against Jonathan Rothschild.
This is only Day 4 of the general election, and already the evidence is piling up. Ally Miller does not live in the fact-based universe.
[Full disclosure: I volunteer with Nancy Young Wright's campaign. I also live in the fact-based universe.]
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Yep, Ann day should endorse Nancy Young Wright if she cares about what’s best for Pima County.
This is a crucial election. The Republicans will keep District Four because the Democrats failed (again!) to run a candidate against Carroll. Elias and Valadez should survive in their districts, but there will be a lot of money spent to help Bell in District Three, where there have been close elections before. The Miller-Wright race in District One could be pivotal to control of the Board of Supervisors.
Over 60% of Republicans in the primary voted for someone other than Miller and some of the harshest (and truest) rhetoric against her has come from within the GOP tent. She has shown herself to be thin-skinned and reckless with the facts. The person she seeks to replace, Ann Day, has been known throughout her career for her mature, reasoned approach to leadership.
If the primary results, the critiques from other Republicans about Miller and what the district has enjoyed from Day over the years are any indication, the time is right to elect Wright! Here’s hoping that the Republicans who saw through her BS in the primary do the “Wright thing” in the general election. Day could help to safeguard all she has worked for over the years if she were to endorse Nancy Young Wright!