Doug Ducey

I think I figured it out

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Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

rga

So there I was, with my insomnia, watching Craig Ferguson Wednesday night, when what did I see but this ri-donk-ulous ad from the Republican Governor’s Association. It claimed that Fred DuVal personally and single-handedly raised college tuition rates in Arizona an astronomical amount while serving on the Board of Regents. My first thought was that this is a brazen Swiftboating of DuVal, one that not only attacks one of his biggest strengths as a candidate (education), but will also get by the fact-checkers with an “inconclusive” rating because it’s technically true that tuition went up while DuVal served as a Regent. Conveniently omitted is the fact that the Legislature, not the Regents, were the ones who cut funding per college student by one third since 2007. What a bunch of lying scumwads, thought I.

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Hey, AZ “business leaders”, we need to talk about Doug Ducey.

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Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

Doug Ducey

One of the (many) problems in a red state as economically polarized as Arizona is that the wealthier people are, the more insulated they are from the terrible right wing laws and policies that get passed. They have no fear of being stopped on the street by law enforcement because of how they look. Their children attend private schools or what good public schools remain. The indignities and deprivations visited upon vulnerable members of the population due to cuts to safety net programs are abstractions to them. They live mostly segregated lives in exclusive communities where they only interact with poor people when they’re being served by them. And these affluent Arizonans wield nearly all the political clout because they are the people who fund lobbyists and campaigns, including those of some of the most noxious right wingers.

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Top 10 Reasons Doug Ducey Is Too Extreme for Arizona Voters

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The Koch Brothers support Doug Ducey for Arizona governor.
The Koch Brothers support Doug Ducey for Arizona governor.

After seven months of mud-slinging in a six-way primary race that looked like a remake of Lord of the Flies, multi-millionaire ice cream mogul Doug Ducey has won the Arizona Republican Party’s nomination for governor.

Ducey’s sugary sweet interview with AZCentral this morning made it sound as if he’s already been elected governor, but there’s another election in November, and Democrats statewide are pulling out all the stops to get their candidate, Fred DuVal, elected.

Unfortunately for Tea Partiers in the great state of Maricopa, polls show that: 1) the match-up between Ducey and DuVal is a dead heat and 2) Ducey’s anti-Medicaid-expansion, anti-Obamacare, anti-abortion, anti-woman, anti-worker, anti-immigrant, anti-gay-marriage, anti-common-core, pro-Koch-Brothers platform is not aligned with Arizona voters’ issues.

Don’t let Ducey’s charming aw-shucks, Leave-It-to-Beaver persona fool you. He runs with a tough crowd of right-wing ideologues. You can tell a lot about a person’s true character by looking at the company he keeps. Consequently, the company Ducey keeps weighs heavily in my Top 10 Reasons Why Doug Ducey Is Too Extreme for Arizona…

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#AZGOP Candidates Party with Right-Wing Outlaw Cliven Bundy

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Clive Bundy at Mohave County Republican Party Picnic
Cliven Bundy at Mohave County Republican Party Picnic

The Arizona Republican Party needs to do some introspection because Arizona is not anywhere near as extreme as the AZ GOP is.

Check out this press release (below) from Progress Now Arizona. Three Republican candidates for governor, plus several other Republicans running for statewide office recently partied– in secret– with right-wing extremist and known scofflaw Cliven Bundy. Hopefully, most of these candidates won’t be left standing after the primary election today.

Arizona Political Candidates Hobnob with Cliven Bundy at GOP Picnic

PHOENIX – Outlaw Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed posse hobnobbed with numerous Arizona Republican political candidates last weekend at the70th annual Mohave County Republican Party Picnic.

Stumping politicians who attended the Aug. 16 picnic along with Bundy included: Gubernatorial candidates Treasurer Doug Ducey, Christine Jones and Secretary of State Ken Bennett; Secretary of State candidate Michelle Reagan; Attorney General candidate Mark Brnovich; Treasurer candidates Jeff DeWitt and Randy Pullen; and Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate Diane Douglas.

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No, wobbly Democrats, Scott Smith is (still) not your GOP boyfriend

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Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

Former Mesa Mayor and AZ GOP Gubernatorial candidate Scott Smith got an undeniable boost on Thursday. He was not only endorsed by Governor Brewer (which everyone expected would happen, though it’s curious that they waited until after mail-in ballots dropped to do it) but AZ Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill swiftly cancelled a meeting with Smith backers in which he was going to try and get them to switch to Doug Ducey. This is a big deal. Smith’s team reports a big bump in fundraising overnight and, with Christine Jones’ campaign fading fast, Smith has a real chance in that primary. Smith will enjoy strong LDS support now that Ken Bennett is no longer a contender and it looks like he’s going to take business establishment support away from Ducey. (I still consider Ducey the favorite based on his early fundraising advantage, all the name ID he’s gotten with his feud with Jones, the continued dark money support from radical right wing moneybags, and the tendency of GOP primary voters to select the biggest asshole who is also electable in the general.)

Needless to say, this Scott Smith development caused a resurgence in the cooing and swooning that tends to overtake some of the more softhearted liberals/left-of-center types in Arizona where he is concerned. It’s so bad at this point that I’ve seen some Democrats bragging on Facebook how they changed their registration to get Republican ballots to vote for their dreamboat.

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