Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
While researching the upcoming Arizona legislative races in 2014, I pulled up an editorial I bookmarked from Inside Tucson Business from last June, shortly after Rep. Ethan Orr (R-Tucson) from Legislative District 9 was one of the "RINOS" (Republicans in name only) who voted for Gov. Jan Brewer's Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion bill.
In the Obama Derangement Syndrome Tea Party, this one vote somehow made Ethan Orr a "moderate" (he votes with his Tea-Publican caucus well over 90% of the time) and guilty of "compromising with Democrats" and the anti-Christ, Barack Obama. There was talk of a Tea Party purge in the 2014 GOP primary in District 9 at the time.
Inside Tucson Business tried to talk the teabaggers down from the ledge. Ethan Orr is not the enemy:
The ink hasn’t even dried on bills signed by Gov. Jan Brewer and the post-mortems are only beginning on how this year’s session of the Arizona Legislature went but already some in his party are targeting state Rep. Ethan Orr, R-Tucson, in next year’s — yes, we’re talking 2014 here — elections.
Apparently they are unhappy the moderate hasn’t stayed a true Republican and he played too nice with Democrats. They say they want to find two conservative Republicans to challenge him in next year’s primary election, which should knock him out of the race.
That would be winning a battle but losing the war.
Maybe it’s time for a Politics 101 lesson here. We all know the Tucson region is a blue part of a red state, politically.
No matter how hard some may want for it to be otherwise that’s not changing. At least not anytime soon. The business sector needs to be cognizant of that.
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Now back to the situation with Ethan Orr. While the first-term representative might get bounced by a couple of conservatives in a Republican primary next year, take a look at the rest of the Legislative district which covers the central Catalina Foothills, Casas Adobes and a portion of southern Marana to Interstate 10. Notably the district does not include the more staunchly conservative Republican area of the northwest side.
Legislative District 9 is considered a politically competitive district, with voter registration slightly favoring Democrats, 36.5 percent, to Republicans 33.7 percent. The other two members of the district’s delegation to the Legislature are Democrat Steve Farley in the Senate and Orr’s seatmate in the House, Victoria Steele, also a Democrat. (It’s also worth noting both Farley or Steele can be considered moderate Democrats.)
The likelihood is that if Orr were not part of a general election race, he would be succeeded in the Legislature by a Democrat and the Republicans would lose the seat.
So the Republican establishment is telling the Tea Party that they should sit down, shut the hell up, and do as they are told. Jim Click will decide for them who will be their candidate in Legislative District 9. Are you guys going to take that lying down? That's some pretty weak tea in District 9.
Few people remember that a Republican write-in candidate threatened to upset the Republican establishment's "single shot" voting strategy to steal the seat in District 9 for Ethan Orr in 2012. Dr. Cynthia Miley, an M.D. from Tucson, got in the race late as a write-in candidate with little organization or money, and was soon forgotten. Now would be the time to get in the race, doctor, if you are serious about running.
If the Tea Party is looking for a dyed-in-the-wool Obama hater true believer, what about Dr. Jane M. Orient, M.D., a member of the "Kochtopus" Heartland Institute and Executive Director of the "Kochtopus" front group, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (SourceWatch). She is a clinical lecturer in medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. I don't know that she lives in District 9, but given the recent examples of legislators not living in the districts they serve, this may no longer be a problem.
And whatever happend to "Tea Party Trent" Humphries? He ran for the legislature in the previous Legislative District 26. Has he gone soft and is an establishment Republican now?
District 9 overlaps much of Pima County Supervisor District 1, where the Tea Party queen of conspiracy theories, Ally Miller holds court. Doesn't Miller have any wild-eyed courtesans who want to run?
C'mon guys. You gotta have somebody.