Pearce Recall Update: Pearce desperate, Jerry Lewis airs first ad

Posted hy AzBlueMeanie:

There is an air of desperation among "King" Russell Pearce's Tea Party supporters. They have resorted to a bag of dirty tricks (Natch!) in a desperate attempt to avoid defeat in this recall election.

Jeff Biggers reports at Alternet, Arizona Recall Election Heats Up: Dirty Tricks for Tea Party President Pearce Backfire:

With the Arizona Supreme Court giving the final green light last week, the historic recall election of self-proclaimed “Tea Party President” and SB 1070 architect Russell Pearce has diverged into a spectacular display of high road and low road politics.

While a bipartisan community effort for moderate Republican leader and educator Jerry Lewis has grown across Mesa’s 18th District, emphasizing a positive campaign for jobs, education and a “balanced approach to immigration,” Pearce and his Tea Party supporters have openly flaunted a series of dirty tricks, all of which appear to have backfired.

Thanks to the legwork of Phoenix New Times reporter Stephen Lemons, legendary Phoenix videographer Dennis Gilman and a growing legion of Pearce watchers, virtually every attempt by Tea Party activists and Pearce supporters to intimidate, mislead, litigate and even plant a bogus Mexican American candidate to confuse voters and derail competing votes, have been exposed.

Take the phantom campaign of Olivia Cortes, who is officially on the ballot as the third candidate for Pearce’s state senate seat, despite that the fact that she has failed to hold a single public meeting or press conference. Last Thursday, at a Republican meeting of the neighboring 19th district in Mesa, Lemons and Gilman recorded Pearce supporter and former Republican district chair Pat Oldroyd admitting that she had circulated petitions for Cortes in an effort to split the vote for Lewis. On September 9th, Lemons confronted East Valley Tea Party Chair Greg Western for planting Cortes as a candidate as he turned in Cortes’ petitions at the Secretary of State’s office.

In one of the more insidious developments, signs invoking Arizona native Cesar Chavez’s “Si Se Puede” slogan on behalf of Cortes are now posted across the district. (Photo by Jeff Biggers)

For some observers in Mesa, such a blatant move by Pearce supporters underscores his floundering campaign. 

Pearce, who raised less than 7 percent of his campaign funds in his 2010 senate race from his own Mesa district, has been forced to seek out the support of anti-immigrant hardliners from around the country, including former Constitutional Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo.

[R]ight-wing Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) sent out a fundraising letter last week, which breathlessly (and erroneously) declared that “liberal groups from all over the country are expected to spend more than one million dollars,” alongside the efforts of “left-wing open-border activists, and smearing the hard work and good reputation of our friend Russell Pearce.”

That's funny. "King" Russell Pearce and his Tea Party supporters have long asserted that it is his opponents who are from out of state. More than 10,000 valid signatures from Pearce's constituents in District 18 led to his recall, collected by Arizonans who have had enough of "King" Russell Pearce making Arizona a laughingstock of the nation for late night comics. And their funding comes largely from Arizonans, unlike Pearce.

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports today that Jerry Lewis is airing his first ad. Lewis targets Pearce on immigration in first video:

In his first campaign video, Mesa Republican Jerry Lewis sharpened his political position over how his approach to illegal immigration would differ from Senate President Russell Pearce’s.

The charter school executive released a 6-minute video last week, saying he believes the federal government has failed in its job to secure the Arizona-Mexico border, but that he seeks a more humane way of dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants who are already here.

“Where I differ with Senator Pearce’s approach is on the question of what to do with the remaining undocumented immigrations who are here,” he said.

He said, for example, that Arizona needs to listen to the heads of dozens of Arizona companies, who earlier this year sent a letter to the Senate urging lawmakers to stop pushing immigration legislation.

Sixty top executives told Pearce in March that Arizona would be hurt economically if the state moves forward with such legislation, which at the time included a raft of bills that were eventually defeated.

The challenger also tackled one aspect of the immigration debate where some believe Pearce is vulnerable — their church’s position on the issue and how it differs from Pearce’s.

“As an important moral issue, I and many others in Mesa’s faith community share my church’s stated concern that any state legislation that only contains enforcement provisions is likely to fall short of the high moral standard of treating each other as children of God,” Lewis said, clarifying that he speaks for himself and not for his church, and that he is not implying his church has endorsed him.

* * *

Lewis was careful to say that he believes illegal immigrants who commit crimes and those who don’t respect the culture “need to leave” and a secure border needs to stop them from re-entering.

Pearce last week released his second mailer, which prominently displayed a photo of Gov. Jan Brewer and Pearce. As we have said before, "King" Pearce and Jan Brewer are two demagogue peas in a pod. Jan Brewer would not be our lameduck governor today without de facto governor "King" Russell Pearce's SB 1070 on which to run for office by demonizing and scapegoating Latinos for their failure of leadership. Too bad this recall election is not a package deal.