Phoenix Pol Runs Campaigns for Southern AZ Conservative Candidates

by David Safier

What do Al Melvin, Marilyn Zerull and David Gowan have in common? A few things, actually. They’re extreme right wing Republican candidates running for the state legislature, two in LD-26 (Melvin, Senate and Zerull, House) and one in LD-30 (Gowan, House). And their campaign consultant, strategy guru, flyer designer and talking point creator is one Constantin Querard, a Phoenix-based conservative pol who ran 9 primary campaigns across the state and won all 9. (Full disclosure: I’m a Democratic Precinct Committeeman in LD-26 and am working to elect Democrats in Southern Arizona.)

Querard’s stated aim is to elect legislators statewide who will conform to his extreme right wing agenda, Querard’s candidates tend to conform to an extreme right wing agenda, which includes items such as: no abortions for any reason; less money for public education and more for private school vouchers and tax credits; a lack of concern for the quality of the environment; and a government as small and inattentive to people’s needs as possible.

I draw a very clear conclusion from the Querard-centric campaigns of Melvin, Zerull and Gowan. The candidates’ primary allegiance is to the Phoenix-based, right wing Republican power structure and its ultra-conservative ideology. Somewhere much further down their list of concerns are the needs of their constituents in Southern Arizona.

I can’t claim to be breaking the story about Querard’s statewide control over conservative campaigns, because it’s a well known and much-applauded fact among Arizona’s right wing Republicans. Sonoran Alliance, a conservative blog, posted a story September 6, Unsung hero behind AZ conservative primary sweep: CQ. They’re quite proud of their golden boy:

The driving force behind most of the tightest races between conservative and liberal Republicans? Behind the scenes humble political campaign consultant Constantin Querard, known to friends as “CQ.” Long known for working on conservative campaigns (CQ will not work for pro-abortion candidates), CQ ran 9 legislative races this primary – most of them the highest profile legislative races in the state – and won ALL 9.*

His secret? The best campaign flyers in the state.

[snip]

Thank U CQ! Conservatives running for office in the future should keep him in mind when it comes to hiring a campaign consultant. The local liberal media can fawn all over and promote Democrat bigmouth Emily Bitter Rose all they want, but it’s the behind the scenes guys like CQ they refuse to even acknowledge who are calling the shots.

Sonoran, consider this post an acknowledgment of CQ, as you fondly call him, by the liberal blogosphere. (And not the first, by the way. Tedski has mentioned him a few times over the years over at Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.) I must say, I agree with you on one point. Querard deserves more recognition than he receives. So please feel free to email this post to those lefty rags like the Star, the Citizen and, of course, the leftest of all, the Arizona Republic, so they can get the word out.

Sonoran Alliance lists the 6 Northern Arizona candidates Querard helped win in the primaries, along with the three in Southern Arizona: Jack Harper (LD-4 Senate), Carl Seel (LD-6 House), Jerry Weiers and Steve Montenegro (LD-12 House), Cecil Ash (LD-18 House) and Thayer Vershoor (LD-22 Senate). According to Querard, who graciously answered some questions I emailed him, he’s also working with incumbents Jim Weiers (LD-10 House), Judy Burges (LD-4 House), and Rick Murphy (LD-9 House), among others.

So, who is Constantin Querard? He once described himself on the GOPUSA website He was referred to on the GOPUSA website as “RINO-Hunter Extraordinaire.” For those of you not up on the lingo, a RINO is a Republican In Name Only, and Querard’s mission is to mount their heads in his trophy room. In LD-26, that meant taking out Toni Hellon in 2006 and uber-RINO Pete Hershberger in 2008 (Pete may be Querard’s proudest trophy), both beaten by Al Melvin in the primaries.

Querard has made brilliant use of Clean Elections laws. Democrats hoped the laws would help level the playing field for their candidates’ runs against the heavily funded Republicans, and to some extent they succeeded. But Querard realized he could run a string of unknown Republican ultra-right wingers to challenge the more moderate, entrenched Republicans who had access to the big money donors. If his outsider candidates could make their names known with slick flyers and posters as well as high quality radio and TV ads, Querard reasoned, then get their base out in the low voter primaries, they had a good shot at knocking out the more moderate Republican old guard.

He’s been proven right with a strong record of wins in the primaries. But he’s had less success in the general when his candidates run in districts where a Democrat has a fighting chance of winning. They often have trouble attracting votes from moderate Republicans and independents. That’s what happened in LD-26 in 2006, where Querard’s two candidates knocked out moderate Republicans in the primary then lost to Democrats in the general — the first Democratic wins in the district. Dems have been known to thank Querard for getting rid of the tough opposition and putting up easier-to-beat candidates.

Querard has been at this for a number of years, with mixed results. He has the dubious distinction of having David Burnell Smith as one of his successful candidates, who is the only sitting legislator ever removed from office for Clean Elections violations. Querard was also sued by the Maricopa Republican Party for an early ballot drive he put together. Apparently he held on to thousands of forms until days before the election while he mined them for information he could use to help his candidates, driving the party leaders nuts.

His alienation from the mainstream Republican Party lasted until a right wing coup put Randy Pullen in charge of the party in 2007. Pullen welcomed Querard into the fold. According to PoltickerAZ, “Pullen’s administration hired consultant Constantin Querard to focus on the local legislative races.” Querard lists himself as “principal consultant to both the Arizona Republican House Committee and the Arizona Republican Senate Committee.”

Querard can proudly take a certain amount of credit for dragging the Arizona Republican Party further and further to the right. As long as they stay in power, that’s good news for Querard and bad news for the rest of us. But if Arizonans continue punishing Querard’s Republican candidates at the polls for their wingnuttery, he could be hastening the resurgence of Democrats as the leaders of the state legislature.