Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
March 9th, 2010
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Author: Tucson Weekly TV catches up with muralist Joe Pagac, the artist behind the rock ’n’ murals popping up on the side of the Rialto Theatre and Bookmans.
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Former congressman J.D. Hayworth’s challenge to U.S. Senator John McCain in this year’s GOP primary is exposing all sorts of fault lines in the Arizona Republican Party.
Hayworth himself has noted that the race was “a classic political confrontation: John McCain and the Washington establishment on one side, and we the people on the other.”
Those fault lines are extending into Southern Arizona’s Congressional District 8, where four Republicans—former state senator Jonathan Paton and political newcomers Jesse Kelly, Brian Miller and Andy Goss—are duking it out in the August GOP primary to see who gets to challenge Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the November general election.
Kelly, who was gathering the most media attention before Paton got into the race in January, has endorsed Hayworth in the race.
“I support conservatives,” Kelly says. “It’s not an indictment of John McCain. But I support J.D. Hayworth because he stands more with the conservative principles that I believe.”
By embracing Hayworth, Kelly is setting himself up as the outsider who is
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Once again, the state’s budget problems are center stage on Arizona Illustrated’s Friday Roundtable, along with Republican Frank Antenori’s promotion from the Arizona House to the Arizona Senate and the city of Tucson’s loss in a lawsuit over non-partisan election.
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An interesting story from Hotline.com involving Sen. John McCain and former national Republican committeeman Mike Hellon on one side and current GOP state chair Randy Pullen and current National Republican Committeeman Bruce Ash on the other that we missed last week:
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has lost the endorsement of a key leader of his own party, and a behind-the-scenes feud is emerging that could put McCain at odds with GOP activists in his home state.McCain and the AZ House delegation have agreed to divert money for the party’s get-out-the-vote efforts away from the AZ GOP, sources tell Hotline OnCall. The decision comes after a contentious meeting between the McCain camp and top state party officials, according to sources on both sides of the debate.
The decision highlights a contentious relationship between the state’s DC delegation and local party leaders back home, a relationship that often works at cross purposes. For years, those close to McCain have sought to oust party chair Randy Pullen, who has a following among the conservative grassroots.
The latest controversy, which has been quietly simmering for months, comes as party leaders prepare for the Nov. midterms. In AZ, the stakes are particularly high; Gov. Jan Brewer (R) faces
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District 30 precinct leaders have picked three names to forward to the Pima County Board of Supervisors to pick a replacement for Republican Jonathan Paton, who stepped down from his state Senate seat last week to run for Congress.
The nominees are Rep. Frank Antenori, former state lawmaker Randy Graf and Ted Vogt, the District 30 chairman.
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Pima County Supervisors are preparing a resolution to ask the town of Marana to slow down their race to slap down a landfill outside their town limits and on the edge of several Pima County neighborhoods out north of Avra Valley Road.
The resolution cites several concerns, including the size of the dump, which is eight times the acreage of the Tangerine Landfill. (It will rise more than 200 feet from the ground.) It also calls for more archaeological surveys and complains that the surrounding roads are in no condition to handle a steady stream of waste haulers.
One other concern: The dump could need to import trash to turn a profit, and once Marana gives the landfill operators the green light to build a dump, the town will have no say in whether it becomes a national dumping ground.
Andrea Rivera of the morning daily has some details on the landfill plan:
Shellberg, who lives in Pima County on Avra Valley Road about two miles from Interstate 10, and other Pima County residents agree a landfill in the area is needed.But many questioned why it needs to be so close to residential communities such as Silverbell West and Happy Acres.
Residents also voiced concerns about water quality, property values, environmental
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Our two U.S. senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, made their first tag-team appearance on Arizona Illustrated last night. Their biggest difference: McCain says the Republicans should not have spent so much money expanding prescription-drug coverage for Medicare patients in 2003, while Kyl continues to defend his vote for the entitlement, even as he complains that the Democratic health-care reform package would cost too much.
Kyl also isn’t sure whether waterboarding is torture, while McCain stands by his earlier comments that it is.
Watch it after the jump.
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We hear rumblings that Congressman Raul Grijalva and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, along with Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup, will announce more than $60 million in stimulus dollars for downtown’s urban-streetcar system. That’s a huge win for the city of Tucson that will open up the floodgates for matching funds from the Regional Transportation Authority and make the rail system a reality.
The money is coming from the highly competitive TIGER grant program. The program had $1.5 billion to hand out, but drew $56.5 billion in requests, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
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Former Congressman J.D. Hayworth formally launched his campaign against Arizona Sen. John McCain on yesterday, showing up in Tucson at the end of a long day of speeches around Arizona.
Hayworth is not holding back in his punches against McCain, dismissing Arizona’s senior senator as too liberal for the state because he opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, thinks it’s wrong to waterboard terrorists like the underwear bomber and supports “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.
Hayworth, who was introduced by Congressional District 8 candidate Jesse Kelly, called his campaign “a classic political confrontation: John McCain and the Washington establishment on one side, and we the people on the other.”
In Tucson, we the people added up to about 100 folks at El Presidio Park, many of whom identify with the Tea Party movement, although The Skinny did not see Tucson Tea Party leaders Trent Humphries and Robert Mayer in attendance.
Hayworth has captured a few high-profile endorsements, including Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has never been much of a fan of McCain, and Minuteman Civil Defense Corps founder Chris Simcox, who announced he was giving up his own campaign against McCain to support Hayworth. (Given Simcox’s lousy polling numbers, that move probably just saves him several gallons of humiliation on primary day.) And might we even see Joe the Plumber coming to Arizona to help Hayworth as St. Sarah of Alaska comes to the rescue of McCain?
McCain has kept the support of the members of Arizona’s congressional delegation, although the Hayworth challenge has him moving further to the right than ever. This race will expose all the weird contradictions that exist within the modern Republican Party and its ongoing love/hate affair with government. Frankly, we can’t wait to watch it all unfold.
If nothing else, the GOP primary should encourage Democratic City Councilman Rodney Glassman to take the gamble of getting into the race on the chance that Hayworth pulls off an unlikely upset or McCain alienates enough conservatives that they don’t support him in November.
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The latest bulletin from Rep. Steve Farley:
Howdy, Friends O’Farley…It’s been a quiet week in State Wobegon…
Actually, it has been anything but a quiet week. More legislators are declaring their intentions to run for more offices, committees are pumping out some really suspect bills, House Republicans are trotting out their corporate-bailout deficit-expansion package, teachers and historic neighborhoods are under attack, rumors of yet another Special Session are in the air, and the Republicans are still not willing to work with Democrats on budget solutions.
But there is some good news.
First, one of the best U.S. Transportation Secretaries we have ever had, Ray LaHood, put in to effect today a ban on driving while texting for all interstate truck and bus drivers. Violators will be fined $2,750, so our roads will be a little safer as of today. I will fill you in on our latest efforts to ban DWT in AZ in a couple of weeks.
Second, in even better news, the efforts of the payday lending industry to stave off their imminent demise have failed
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