SWAG Re: Arizona U.S. Senate Race in 2010

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Our incumbent "Senator Sore Loser," John McCain, has already announced that he will seek reelection to yet another term in the U.S. Senate in 2010. This elicited from the electorate a collective sigh, "why?"

After abandoning the citizens of Arizona for the past 10 years to pursue his quixotic quest to become president of the United States, only to run the most amateurish and self-destructive campaign in modern history (yes, even more than Dukakis), why run again? Just do everyone a favor and retire – go enjoy your remaining years at one of your eight, nine, ten homes, however many homes you own today.

The Arizona Daily Star reports today that McCain will have a primary challenger from the far-right fringe of the GOP, Chris Simcox, the co-founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps in Arizona. Minuteman leader seeks McCain seat. Simcox is scheduled to appear today at a press conference outside the state Capitol, where he will announce he is stepping down from his position with the Minutemen to challenge McCain.

Apparently Mr. Simcox thinks he can do a better job than his fellow Minuteman Jim Deakin who is already a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. Maybe the Minutemen should hold a "thunderdome" competition: two men enter, one man leaves as our candidate. Call Jonathan Paton to referee – he's into this kind of craziness.

Should McCain actually decide to retire at the last minute, Congressman John Shadegg has made it clear to anyone who will listen that he sees himself as the natural successor and heir apparent to John McCain. That's why we hold elections, Johnny.

Former Congressman J. D. Hayworth uses his talk radio program to regularly lambast John McCain and to suggest that he just might run for Senate against McCain. While J.D. pollutes the airwaves with his bloviating, he has not yet demonstrated that he has the cajones to actually quit his day job and challenge McCain. I guess he needs the paycheck.

On the Democratic side of the ledger, the pickings are even slimmer.

Stuart Starky, who was the Democratic sacrificial lamb against John McCain in 2004, is back again for another try. http://www.starkyforsenate.com/ Starky has twice lost campaigns for Congress and a state senate campaign back in the 1990s, and the U.S. Senate campaign in 2004. Not the kind of track record that inspires confidence.

Rudy Garcia is another Democrat running for the U.S. Senate. http://arizonaonthemove.com/ From his web site: Garcia previously served as a city council member for 8 years in Bell Gardens, CA before being elected mayor. He moved to Arizona when he retired. Garcia is an Army veteran. He began the Willie C. Velasquez Center and served as the Executive Director of the non-profit organization which helped more than 100,000 people attain legal American Citizenship (calm down Simcox, put your gun away). This is a grass roots campaign …

With all due respect to Starky and Garcia, I am sure that you are both genuinely concerned about your country and are fine upstanding citizens, but seriously –is this the best the Democratic Party has to offer? Can we do better than this? John McCain is vulnerable. What if he were to suddenly retire or lose his GOP primary to some wingnut and Democrats failed to put up a serious contender because they convinced themselves that John McCain cannot be beaten? Can you live with this result?

There must be someone at some level of elective office, or maybe someone in the business community with sufficient name I.D., who would be able to run a credible campaign and would be able to raise the kind of campaign funds it takes to run a Senate campaign today. If you have any names that you want to throw in the hat, post them in the comments.