One of the high points of the DNC2012 for me was being interviewed by Jason Jones of Comedy Central. (I wasn’t nutty enough to get on TV.)
Laughing is good for your health.
Laughing Liberally is good for your health, good for your mind, and good for democracy.
Laughing Liberally political comics regularly perform around town. Tonight– July 31— the comics will perform at Hotel Congress at 8 p.m. The twist for tonight’s event will be the addition of tabling politicians like myself. Come on down! Have a laugh, meet the candidates, and enjoy an evening of politics and laughs.
In honor of tonight’s event, check out my one and only Laughing Liberally performance from 2012. I had the honor of blogging the 2012 DNC for the Huffington Post. Hear about my experiences below, and come to Hotel Congress tonight to catch some laughs and meet fellow progressives.
Talking about inequality and the stinky wages women make in Tucson.
Last Thursday, the Nucleus Club hosted the second LD9 Democratic Party match-up between the three candidates who will be on the primary ballot in August– Dr. Randy Friese, Matt Kopec, and me– Pamela Powers Hannley.
About 50 LD9 residents and party regulars attended the event at the Viscount. This was the fourth Democratic candidate forum that the club hosted during this election season; all were well-attended. Apparently, Democrats are no longer afraid of primaries because there are several this year: Congressional District 2 (Victoria Steele vs Matt Heinz); LD10 House race (Kirsten Engel, Stephanie Mach and Courtney Frogge), LD2 House race (Daniel Hernandez, Aaron Baumann and Rosanna Gabaldon), Pima County Superintendent of Schools (Dustin Williams and Michael Gordy), and my race in LD9.
Personally, I disagree with those who think primaries are a waste of money. I think they are a great idea. It gets the candidates out and allows different ideas to be heard. (Also, having almost no primaries int 2014 didn’t do us any good.)
Southern Arizona Legislative candidates arranged by the total amount they raised by June 1, 2016. The percentage of PAC funds is given at the top of each column. Green bars are Clean Elections candidates. (Source data: SOS Campaign Finance system.)
June 30 was the deadline for statewide and legislative candidates to file their campaign finance reports. Data nerds like me love slogging through the Secretary of State’s website for Ah-Ha moments of discovery. And there are some.
Remaining funds for each Southern Arizona Legislative candidate, after reported expenses have been subtracted. Green bars are Clean Elections candidates. (Source data: SOS Campaign Finance system.)
My primary reason for looking at these data was, of course, to gauge my campaign against others in Southern Arizona. For nearly a year, people have been telling me not to run as a Clean Elections (CE) candidate because “it’s just not enough money.” These two graphics show a somewhat different picture.
The top graphic shows that Daniel Hernandez (D-LD2) blew the doors off the fundraising barn by gathering $60,437, but Hernandez spent $25,489 to get there, leaving him with $34,948 on July 1. (Yes, of course, he can keep dialing for dollars every day from now until November 8, but that is a lot of time and manpower.) Ana Henderson (R-LD9) with $21,345 is the Clean Elections candidate with the most funds on July 1; she has spent only $1,367. You can see how the difference between these two candidates flattened out when you take into consideration the money Hernandez had to spend to raise $60,000. (Since Clean Elections has strict rules on how much we can collect in seed money and family money and how we receive once we have qualified for public funds, all of the candidates who have qualified for CE have roughly the same amount. Note the green bars on both graphs. (Fun fact: all of the qualified CE candidates in Southern Arizona are women.)
Let’s compare Hernandez to the other two candidates in the LD2 Democratic Party primary.
Pamela Powers Hannley, progressive Democrat for Arizona House, LD9
Progressive candidates across the country are challenging the status quo. I was honored to be interviewed for the “It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown” progressive talk radio show this week.
You can hear the hour-long podcast here. During the first segment, public banking guru Ellen Brown interviews Tim Canova, a law professor and Federal Reserve Bank expert, who is running against embattled Congresswoman and DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in Southern Florida.
Canova’s campaign has similarities to my campaign in that he is a progressive running against a Democratic Party establishment candidate, his campaign is financed by small donations, and he supports public banking, postal banking, and relaxing marijuana prohibition.
Last Friday January 15, the PCs (Precinct committee people) in LD 9 selected 3 Democrats to send to the Pima County Board of Supervisors, to choose one for appointment to a vacant LD 9 House seat at today’s regular board meeting. Victoria Steele, twice elected to that position resigned last week to run for CD 1 House, currently held by freshman Republican Congresswoman Martha McSally. (Steele faces opposition in the Dem primary on August 30 for that seat from Dr. Matt Heinz, who also served in the Arizona State House.)
The 3 people nominated were:
Pamela Powers Hannley, managing editor (now part time) of the American Journal of Medicine, blogger here at Blog for Arizona and her own blogsite Tucson Progressive;
Matt Kopec, Pima County Dem Party Treasurer and Council aide to Ward 3 Councilmember Karin Uhlich;
and Ted Prezelski, Council aide to Ward 2 Councilmember Paul Cunningham, founder of blogsite Rum, Romanism & Rebellion (inactive), who also ran for LD 28 House in the Democratic primary of August, 2010. He is the twin brother of former LD 29 House Rep. Tom Prezelski, who served 2 terms in the Arizona State House.
