I took some grief from Stephen Lemons when I did not jump all over his exposé on Doug Ducey’s mob family connections . Special Report: Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate Doug Ducey Hails From an Infamous Ohio Organized-Crime Family.
My response is tempered by experience. I have lived in this state since 1963. I knew mobster Joe Bonano (he was a regular customer at my Dad’s service station); I saw the real estate land swindles back in the day; political corruption from the assassination of reporter Don Bolles, to AzScam, to the Keating Five, to the alt-fuels scandal, to the Fiesta Bowl scandal; the impeachment of Ev Mecham, and the resignation of J. Fife Symington III after conviction. Arizona is the wild West.
Through it all, there is one thing I have come to know: Republican voters in Arizona do not give a damn if their politicians are crooks or connected to crooks.
John McCain is a good example. I was thinking when I read Lemons piece, “what about McCain’s involvement with Hensley & Co., the Budweiser distributorship, from which his wife Cindy inherited her fortune? Jim Hensley was linked to Kemper Marley, the man who ordered the assassination of reporter Don Bolles. And what about Charles Keating and the Keating Five? John McCain was up to his eyeballs in that scandal. ” Democrats have tried to tar John McCain with this history for his entire political career. He was rewarded with the nomination of his party for president in 2008. McCain has never lost an election. Republican voters in Arizona just do not give a damn.
In any case, Stephen Lemons has a must read commentary today, which includes this history on McCain, and much more about Dicey Doug Ducey. Ducey’s Salesmanship Signals Doom in AZ. If you have not already voted, please read these two pieces by Lemons before you mindlessly cast a vote for Doug Ducey out of GOP tribalism because he has an “(R)” behind his name on the ballot. You are inviting disaster. You have been warned.
Voters should give a damn about Stephen Lemons is writing about. But experience tells me that Republican voters in this state just don’t give a damn. And that is more of an indictment of Arizona Republicans than it is of Doug Ducey.
Thank you AZBlueMeanie … and thank you to investigative reporter Stephen Lemons both of you epitomize that group of journalists who reside in the “First Estate.” I am old enough to remember another hero of mine … Don Bolles investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic Newspaper and how he was murdered for crossing an organized criminal whose name is still ballyhooed about for his foundation which gives money to some charities on public television.
We people are like zombies that real reporters try to wake up every day from our apathetic slumber or diverted attention to things like American Idol and professional football.
Journalists around the world are routinely murdered … i.e. beheaded “pushed out of windows” or ridiculed mercilessly like the reporter from the San Jose Mercury News (Gary Webb) for exposing corruption in our government. But … nevertheless … we need you (the “Fourth Estate”) more than ever because of ….growing private and governmental centralized power which is becoming stronger while the truth about what is going on in the political, economic and social aspects of our society grows weaker.
Please, continue the good fight for you might just be one of the last bastions we have left against tyranny in this country and around the world.
Leonard Clark
fond reader of the Fourth Estate
October 31st, 2014