By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings
Advice to politicos and would-be politicos:
When you are caught in some sort of misstatement and are being criticized, there are two viable options –
1. Fix the statement.
2. Ignore the criticism.
Whatever you do, however, don’t double down. That just gives your critics a 2nd bite at the apple.
To whit:
On Sunday, I posted about the campaign signs of Hugh Hallman, a Republican candidate for the office of Arizona State Treasurer.
His signs proclaim his focus on balancing the state’s budget.
A few hours after putting up the post, Hallman (or someone from his campaign) tweeted a reply –
The reply didn’t address the fact that the state treasurer has nothing to do with the state budget, but to be fair to him, I visited his website. I wanted to see if the website, which can be updated/corrected far more readily than signs, showed that Hallman has a more realistic view of the duties of the office than his signs indicate.
The very front page of his website –
Soooooo…based on the “double down” strategy, I have to ask –
Is Hallman running for office or practicing for a Blackjack tournament?
In case anyone is interested, there is now an Americans Elect candidate who will be the only opponent to U.S. Rep. Trent Franks. Stephen Dolgos, a conservative who ran against Trent Franks last time, filed today. Although liberals might not agree with many of Stephen’s views, he is a decent person and merits the vote of anyone who doesn’t want to vote for Trent Franks.
Also filing for a U.S. House seat today is Rebecca DeWitt, in the 7th Congressional District, safe Democratic for the winner of the primary. Rebecca ran in the primary against Rep. Pastor last time and was the Green Party candidate against him in 2010 (old 4th C.D.). She will be the Americans Elect candidate in a district where no Republican is running.
It still would be great to have a non-Republican candidate for State Treasurer. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
Correction: it’s Thursday at 5 PM. You can send in the forms by USPS Express Mail or FedEx. If you want to know how to do it, contact me at richard.grayson@yahoo.com
This is a plea to Arizona liberals:
As of today, whoever wins the Republican primary for Treasurer will be elected without opposition. Someone has filed as a write-in candidate for the Democratic primary for Treasurer, but it is impossible to win a major-party primary in a statewide race because you need as many votes as you would have gotten had you submitted signatures to be on the ballot. In this case, it’s an impossible 4,800+ votes.
However, anyone can win the Americans Elect Party primary with a plurality of the votes as long as she registers with the Secretary of State’s office by Thursday at noon. Had the guy running as a Democratic candidate asked me, I would have told him to run on the Americans Elect line, vote for himself (by changing registration temporarily to independent or Americans Elect), win the primary, and then change his registration back to Democrat and run as Democrat using the Americans Elect line. (I come from New York politics, where they have fusion, and candidates of major parties have often run on minor party lines when they lose their party’s primary, so I’m used to this. Also, it’s very common in special elections where NY law disallows primaries.) I was the Americans Elect Party candidate for Congress in 2012.
If someone wants to perform a mitzvah for voters who don’t want to vote for a Republican candidate for Treasurer or to the unopposed Republican Congressman Trent Franks, please file by Thursday to run as a write-in candidate in the Americans Elect Party. (For Congress, you don’t have to live in the district. Hell, you don’t even have to live in the state, just be “an inhabitant of the state at the time of election.” That’s how I got to be running unopposed in the August 19 Democratic primary in Wyoming’s only congressional district. If I weren’t running a statewide Democratic campaign in Wyoming, I’d run against Trent Franks if only on the abortion/birth control issue.)
Maybe I’m stupid, but I strongly believe that Democrats and liberals should have a choice other than skipping a race where only Republicans are running. But I also am sorry that nearly all New York City Democratic candidates don’t have a Republican opponent for the few conservatives there that want not to vote Democratic or skip a race.
There are two write-in Americans Elect candidates for the legislature as of today: in Senate District 7, where there is no Republican; and in House District 22, where there are both Democratic and Republican candidates.
You know, anyone running on any party against Trent Franks or Hallman or whoever wins the GOP primary for Treasurer will probably get 20%-25% without doing anything whatsoever to “campaign.”
Anyway, that’s the end of my rant.
When I sent an email to him (a wanna-be “legislatore”) this is what I got in return: (from Julie Lind)
“Hugh has been working with legislators for decades on fiscal matters as both an expert in economics and taxation law. This is one of the reasons that he is endorsed by over 85 Arizona elected officials including legislatores. (sic)
He knows that the State Treasurer does not balance the state budget, but believes that EVERYONE needs to demand that Arizona balance its budget. This will help to reduce the amount of taxes we pay, and make Arizona more fiscally sound. That is everyone’s job. He will be an advocate in the Treasurer’s office for a balanced budget.
More on this topic and exactly how Hugh can do this is on his website. ”
Yeah.
The state’s budget *is* balanced. The lege has played accounting games in recent years so that they could give corporations big tax cuts, but officially, the budget has been balanced. Fiscally irresponsible in the long-term, perhaps, but not legally out of balance. And I don’t expect Hallman or the other R candidates for Treasurer to advocate for fiscally responsible budgeting. That would not please lobbyists for corporate interests or their deep-pocketed masters.