by David Safier
One of the signs Obama was becoming a sure thing in 2008 was the serial defections of moderate Republicans who said in a hundred different ways, "My party has left me."
So what does it mean that a Forbes blog picked up the statement from Former Intel Chief Exec Craig Barrett that he wouldn't set up shop in Arizona these days knowing about the education budget cuts? And the Forbes blog got the story from Discover Magazine?
To me it means the story of Arizona's anti-education, anti-business Republican establishment is starting to go viral.
At the same time the Baja Arizona story is bouncing around the country and, via The Economist, around the world, stories of the truly crazy, let's-destroy-Arizona-for-an-ideology-we-don't-understand Russell Pearce Republicans are working their way around the nation's business community in state and around the country. And you know what? The desire to secede from Maricopa is looking saner and saner every day, both to us Pima County progressives and to the world looking at Arizona and asking itself, "What the hell is going on in that state?" Even our Chambers of Commerce are starting to wonder what they got themselves into.