The CD 1 Clusterfuck GOP Primary is looking like the political version of the game show Weakest Link: “You are the weakest link. Goodbye.” None of these guys deserves to win.
The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports that the anointed GOP establishment pick, House Speaker Andy Tobin, can’t raise money and he has pissed away what money he has on consultants, legal teams and campaign advisers, forcing him to “go dark” in the final weeks of the GOP primary. Tobin struggles in CD1 despite opponents’ gaffes:
In the last campaign finance reporting period, which covered between April 1 and June 30, Tobin spent 96 percent of the $176,000 he raised on the campaign trail, leaving him with a net profit of only $6,000 for the three months. Kirkpatrick, by comparison, brought in $420,000 for the quarter and increased her war chest to $1.3 million.
And the lack of campaign funds is visible on the campaign trail, where Tobin is the only Republican in the race without a commercial on TV.
Republicans complain that Tobin’s campaign has been lackluster on several fronts. And although the general consensus within GOP circles is he is still the frontrunner, some wonder whether he will be able to turn his high-cost, low-performance campaign into an operation capable of toppling the well-funded Democrat in November.
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So far, no independent political groups have come to Tobin’s aid.
Which is a clear indication that GOP donors have written him off. They don’t want to throw good money after bad. “Goodbye.”
Then there is Adam Kwasman, who is still standing beside the road in Oro Valley waiting on that busload of Central American refugees to arrive (hint: they were never coming, it was all a lie concocted by studboi1, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu).
This week Kwasman revealed that he has a currently non-life threatening form of blood cancer, hoping to use this revelation to make a point about his opposition to “ObamaCare” and Gov. Jan Brewer’s expanded Medicaid (AHCCCS) program. GOP candidate Kwasman reveals he has cancer:
Adam Kwasman, a candidate in the 1st District, says he has a slow-growing blood cancer that was caught early, has presented no symptoms and will likely require no treatment for at least a decade. The cancer is called chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Kwasman, 31, said he learned he had cancer last year, just before launching his campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. He said he did not tell the public because it has not affected him.
“I have cancer but I’m not sick,” Kwasman said in an interview with The Arizona Republic. “I still go to the gym three times a week.”
So what was the point of his revelation? Here it is in a nutshell:
Kwasman opposed Gov. Jan Brewer’s push to provide health care to thousands of low-income Arizonans.
The issue has been a cornerstone of Kwasman’s campaign. He has criticized Tobin for supporting the Medicaid expansion. Tobin sought to craft an alternative to Brewer’s plan.
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Kwasman said that with his cancer he has a personal reason to oppose Medicaid expansion and other parts of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Kwasman said he worries that under the health-care law he could lose access to quality doctors and have his care rationed.
Translation: “I’ve got mine, fuck those poor people who need Medicaid!” This guy is the poster boy for the self-involved narcissism of the modern conservative movement. Check out this catch from Howard Fischer, Congressional candidate Kwasman reveals cancer diagnosis:
Kwasman used the press conference to say how his disease has made his bid to kill the Affordable Care Act all the more “personal.”
He acknowledged, that if he loses the congressional race — and when the state-provided health insurance expires when his legislative term ends in January — he would become a beneficiary of a key provision of the law: He could not be denied future coverage based on his preexisting condition.
Kwasman said, though, that does not change his desire to repeal the law. Instead, he wants to replace it with an entirely different system based on block grants to states, but one that would keep the non-deniability language, but he conceded that his own party has so far failed to offer any meaningful alternative.
“It’s all about me, baby!”
Finally, there is the gaffe-prone wealthy rancher Gary Kiehne, who this week joined Sarah Palin in the pantheon of politicians totally clueless about what is going on around them. Remember this classic from the Quitta from Wasilla?
And here is Gary Kiene’s contribution to the political humor Hall of Shame. Gary Kiehne Gets Biggest Endorsement of Them All (as in “hung like a horse” – check out the boner on the stud in the background). Kiehne has locked up the vote of people who like horses with big dicks. But is that going to be enough to win?
