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.