Thinking about 2010

I've been reading Ted Prezelski's blog and there was a post about a Goddard/Pederson primary for Governor and it got me thinking about how Democrats are thinking about the race in 2010 and what could possibly go wrong (at least from the Democrat's perspective). My concerns center around the notion that Jan Brewer will be the Republican's standard bearer in 2010. I'm not so sure.

We need to be prepared for a case where Brewer is challenged in the primary and may not win. From what I'm hearing, she's "not conservative enough" for some of the state's dominant Republicans who just don't seem to like women holding state-level elected office. If she has a primary, then there is no reason to believe it will be any prettier than a Goddard/Pederson primary insofar as the base is concerned. My point is we can't afford to be lulled to sleep by Republicans telling us it'll be Brewer in 2010 because it may not be.

Consider this scary Republican 2010 ticket:

Governor: Joe Arpaio (beats Brewer easily in a primary)
Secretary of State: Jack Harper (beats Kunasek closely)
Attorney General: Andy Thomas (beats Horne safely)

I won't even get into their replacements right now, but that's a real good news/bad news story, too.

Arpaio likely believes he can beat anyone at this point--even Brewer. He believes he can use the Goddard investigations as leverage against Terry--who cares if none of the claims are true--he'll gladly bring it out expecting Democrats to do what we always do and not hit back with a sledgehammer or spend the money necessary to beat him.

Don't forget that Arpaio was thinking about running for Governor in 2002 and again in 2006, but didn't because he wouldn't run against Napolitano. I'll bet he has no such qualms with Brewer--especially if she vetoes some legislation he wants passed or somehow appears "soft on illegals."

Harper's already posturing for the SoS gig because he has (a) started an exploratory committee; (b) pitched Brewer on his being her replacement; and (c) is trotting out the pathetic "abusing voter registration" red herring. I don't know if you saw his op-ed in Sunday's East Valley Tribune, but it's an indicator of the distortions to come.

Andy may get reigned in by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, which means he can't have as much fun locking up Joe's adversaries as much as Joe would like, but my guess is Andy thinks he can beat anyone on the Democratic side having just turned back Tim Nelson, who had money and the support of Gov. Napolitano. In a head-to-head with Tom Horne, Andy wins with the right-wing-nut conservatives who bother to vote in the Republican primary handily. Why? County attorney who locks up illegals versus a former State School Superintendent. If you're a conservative Republican, who are you voting for? This is easy. This gives the Republican crazies a nightmare ticket that the Democrats will need to be loaded for bear to defeat. Just as the Democrats may be motivated to vote against them, Republicans may be just as motivated to vote them in. Remember, McCain did carry Arizona even though there are a lot of hard-right Republicans mad at him for the immigration bill he tried to pass. I don't think any serious analyst would disagree that Republicans are historically way better at turning out their base for their candidates than the Democrats.

I'm not saying this is a sure thing, but the notion some people have that "the voters of Arizona will finally wake up to the excesses of Republican rule in the next election" just seem too optimistic to me. It's as if we have to only tolerate two years and then it'll be a cake walk.

Think about it this way: if there was a year that should have happened, that Republicans should have turned on their own, it was 2008. It didn't happen (of course not targeting nearly 2/3rd's of the state's Democrats and Independents didn't help the cause). So what's to make us think just because we put up Democrats that the public will vote for them next time just because they're not Republicans--especially if they're unknown or less known names?

Absolutely nothing.

No out party has ever won control of government simply by being the party of "no." If we do things in 2010 like we did this last election, we run the risk of being frozen out of the majority for another 10 years. Why? Because Democrats won't be in any position to sufficiently influence the redistricting efforts. Yeah, there's a commission, but if the Republican legislature decides to change things and a Republican Governor approves, it'll be years getting through the courts and in the meantime more damage gets done. The current commission submitted maps that got held up through court challenges. Don't think it couldn't happen again.

There is a real risk that history may repeat and in my mind, that's an unacceptable risk. Democrats have to be prepared not only for what the Republicans want us to think, we also need to have thought through all of and we need to start preparing yesterday. Tomorrow is too late.

MCSO Insults our Intelligence

Are you getting tired of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office spinning everything? In today's Arizona Republic opinion page, MCSO media spokesman Deputy Chief Brian Sands attempts to claim the Republic's Lori Roberts is insulting those deputies who participate in the MCSO's showboating "roundups." She didn't insult them, but that doesn't mean she can't be a target.

Here's my response to Sands' whining:

Out of these 898 arrests, how many convictions do you have? I would remind you that in the United States, you are innocent until --proven-- guilty. So let's see the conviction numbers before you take any credit for any success.

I also see you again skate the issue of the 41,000 outstanding felony warrants the MCSO is required by statute to serve. Bragging that the MCSO has in the last two years arrested 898 Class 4 felons while you allow murders, rapists, bank robbers and sexual predators run free is an insult to our intelligence.

The real insult to the MCSO deputies is their having to work for a boss who thinks his own media persona is more important than arresting 41,000 felons and 37,000 other criminals who really are making our community less safe. The insult is arresting people for the most minor of traffic infractions and then claiming you've captured "serious felons" when you know that the felony classification was an deliberate act by the legislature to make their being here sound worse than it is.

I will be so happy that come January 1, 2009 we'll have a new sheriff who knows what real crime enforcement means when Dan Saban is sworn in as the the Sheriff.

Tired of the whiners

There's a letter to the editor in the March 5, 2008 Arizona Republic by some woman named Carol who argues that Democrats will raise your taxes. I thought about it and you know what? Carol's right. We'll be dead in a few years, so what do we care if we pile on massive debt to our children and grandchildren? What do we care if we pass the buck onto them? It's their money and future we're squandering. What do they need a stable economy for? At least we'll be able to say in the history books what a great generation we were because we kicked the Commie's rear ends. Why can't these kids show a little gratitude for a change?

Better to have it now when we want it so we can continue to make asinine points about the size of government and spending. It's much more important to teach our kids we don't give a rat's keister about paying our nation's bills when we can pass it on to them. It's better to borrow money for our current charades from those Commies who make all that cheap stuff we buy at Wal-Mart.

Seriously, though, have you ever been to one of these taxpayer group meetings? There's not a person in the room under 65. I for one am really getting tired of these old folks who think they know everything telling those of us who will wind up paying their bills what to think. I think they've messed things up enough because of their selfishness and ideology. This isn't about them, it's about our country and they're just too cheap to pay their bills. We wouldn't be in this mess were it not for the people THEY helped elect.

Shame on Carol and those who think like her for continuously trying to convince us they know that they're talking about. Nothing they've suggested has worked yet, so why should we continue to listen to them? It's the Republicans they've elected who have gotten us into this mess. It's the policies they've supported and championed who have caused our debt to rise to nearly $10 trillion dollars. They're wrong and selfish and shame on all of them.

More of the same isn't what we need.

I know I'm not the first, but reading comments like those of Mr. James P. Giangobbe of Litchfield Park in the Opinion section of the Feb. 20, 2008 Arizona Republic explains the appeal of someone like Sen. Barack Obama has to large segments of the public including Democrats, Independents and Republicans. GWB has made conservative speeches and sermons for 7 years and look where it has gotten us. A war McCain wants to extend for 100 years, a federal deficit that puts generations into debt, an economy that's falling below world-class levels. We need a dramatic change and Republicans are incapable of going in any direction other than reverse.

You negative thinking, backward-driving, debt-creating, job-exporting, health care cost-raising Republicans have had your chance and you blew it on countless levels. Frankly, any change from you guys will be welcome.

Intellectual Laziness

I’m tired of this intellectually lazy “it’s the law” immigration argument. How many of us exceed the speed limit when we drive? How many of us drank a beer before we were of legal age? How many of us regularly smoked a cigarette before we were of legal age? How many of us got the wrong change at a store and kept it and felt like we were stealing from them? If you did any of these, you are as much of a "criminal" as someone who crosses the border illegally. So where are the calls for speeding roundups? Where are the Sheriff's Posse patrols for beer drinking kids? Nowhere. How is that fair or just? This is nothing more than selective enforcement of a law for purely political purposes. It won’t solve the immigration problem, it won’t improve the economy, it won’t lower taxes and it won’t lower crime rates.

Fixing immigration means changing the focus of the discussion away from enforcement and towards solutions. The Republicans don’t want that to happen because they need it as a wedge issue. The Democrats seem incapable of deciding whether they want to lead on this issue because they’ll probably come up with some plan that will get labeled as “amnesty.” There are simple ways to solve this, but as long as we discourage people from talking about solutions, we’ll likely not get past this issue for a long time.