I just got back from walking my dog, the one that survived the africanized bee attack a few weeks ago. I walk her after dark as in Tucson it takes a few hours to cool off enough in the evening for me to want to take a quick jog around the neighborhood. It is 9 pm and 91 degrees.
UMC is just down the street and a helicopter took off from the helipad on the roof while we were walking. I cannot see that sight, even a year and a half later, without thinking of that January day when Tucson changed forever. Tonight that memory was very close to the surface with today’s special election to fill Gabby Giffords’ seat for the rest of her term until this fall and the regular Congressional election.
The two major party contenders and a green party candidate vied for her old seat.
Ron Barber, the Democratic candidate, who was also shot twice on January 8,2011, is ahead as I write this, 53 to 45 percent with half of the votes in. This percentage has held fairly steady for the last hour. I’m breathing a bit easier. Jesse Kelly, the Republican candidate, is to the right of even most Tea Bag Types. He ran against Gabby in 2010 in what was a very, very close election. He hosted the target practice with automatic weaponry that “targeted” Gabby in what I still believe was one of the ugly acts that tainted the atmosphere and energy in Tucson that a very disturbed young man picked up on and interpreted as encouragement to act that horrible Winter day. I attended debates where there were Kelly supporters in Nazi attire.
The white supremacist in Arizona politics is, unfortunately, common enough to bring many individuals and groups to mind at its mention. J. T. Reading, an avowed Neo-Nazi, was running for Pinal County Sheriff when he killed his family and himself earlier this year. Reading was Russell Pearce’s buddy, before Pearce was recalled as Arizona Senate member and president. The border militias that have much in common with the Tea Party, have Nazi and Aryan connections as the trials for murders of a family in Arivaca showed. And of course there is the northern Arizona connection with Tim McVeigh. This shit is real. In this state the border militias, neo-nazis, ultra-conservatives, mingle with the conservatives in what I find to be a very disturbing manner. RNC money was backing Jesse Kelly like he was a good Republican.
Ron Barber has been declared the winner, Kelly has conceded, and Barber has given his acceptance speech. Gabby is right on stage with Ron. There is chanting of “Gabby” from the audience. It signals a bit of closure for us here.
I have made no bones about not being aligned with the Blue Dog Democrat that Gabby was in Congress. But she was my representative. There was an assassination attempt on her life. I was at the UMC vigil the day of the shooting. Tucson came together in a way that was amazing, for her and all the injured, and for those we lost. The event changed us all and political nuances became completely unimportant. Citizens came together to support a public servant who had nearly given her life.
For me, this election has been an extension of the journey we Tucsonans and Southern Arizonans all began 18 months ago. Gabby next to Ron on that stage tonight was the best closing of this particular circle within Arizona history that could have happened.
I’m breathing so much easier tonight than I have since it became obvious that national money, Rove and the RNC, was coming in early on to support the extremist right wing candidate Kelly, complete with his High School diploma and construction experience in his father’s company.
But the November elections are fast approaching and Kelly will probably run again. The redistricting changes the districts for this fall’s elections a bit.
Conundrums, Quandaries, and Feb 5th
What’s a progressive girl to do? Feb 5th approaches and I’m facing a question that hundreds of thousands (I’d like to say millions, but I don’t think there are that many thinking people actually involved AZ Democrats) of other Arizonans are facing , do cast my initial approval, my primary vote in the AZ Democratic Primary for the woman, the black man, or the white man? Crass way to look at it I know, but at first pass that is what it seems like. It isn’t a horrible situation to be in compared to what we’ve had in the past. White man, white man, white man… ad infinitum. It isn’t a great situation to be in either.
Can’t get real information on the candidate via the media, just talking heads flapping their jaws about polls and such. As has been the case for far to long, the media is making the news and not reporting information to be interpreted by the masses. I do not care much for Tim Russert, he gives the impression that he isn’t framing issues and asks hard questions, but he misses the big glaring issues about corporatism, fascism, voting fraud and the farce elections have become in this country. His interview with Hillary Clinton this past weekend allowed me to remember why I think Hillary is a very bad choice for President.
Time after time yesterday when I watched Meet the Press I was absolutely floored by the false impressions she created when she spoke.
Hillary Clinton on Barack Obama, “He gave a very impassioned speech against it and consistently said that he was against the war, he would vote against the funding for the war. By 2003, that speech was off his Web site. By 2004, he was saying that he didn’t really disagree with the way George Bush was conducting the war. And by 2005, ‘6 and ‘7, he was voting for $300 billion in funding for the war.”
Via omission of the political climate of 2003 she misdirects people into assuming he pulled the speech from the website because he no longer believed in it. In 2003 there was near hysteria in this country about “you are either for us or against us.” and the absolute cut and dried false picture that the administration and the media painted and piped into peoples homes 24 hours a day was that any criticism of the the invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq was akin to treason. It would have been political suicide to leave that speech up on the website at that time.
She goes on to say a bit later in the interview, “I have been working on behalf of civil rights, women’s rights, human rights for years and I know how challenging it is to change our political system and I have the highest regard for those who have put themselves on the line.”
That is utter poppycock! Unless those people who are putting themselves on the line this time happen to disagree with you, as she has repeatedly shown in her disdain for the women of CODEPINK. Rather than answer questions about her support of the war in 2003 and stay and discuss the concept of the pink slip Jodie Evans attempted to present to her, she marched out of the room, and when she authorized her staff to call for the arrest of women engaged in demonstration in her outer office rather than meeting with them to answer hard questions they posed she showed no respect for those on the front lines of protest and change.
I can go on and on with statements she made yesterday that paint a completely false picture. Most times it can’t be said that she lies in an outright fashion, but she is deceptive and judiciously picks through contradictory snippets to create depictions that lie. She is a consummate politician just as is her husband.
“Look, this is up to the voters of our country to determine. But I want them to have accurate information about our respective records, what we’ve accomplished, the working that each of us have done when given a chance to serve.” she later stated. With election integrity being a missing component in the last several elections, anyone who speaks about voters determining anything without addressing the need for clean and fair elections conducted via paper ballots, then what they are saying is just balderdash. For AZ election integrity info check out Blog for Arizona
Can’t support her — she is all about what she can do for the country — and changes her depiction of herself as necessary per shifting understanding about that for which the country may be looking. She plays old school politics with the big boys where the game is all about getting elected and not about having a vision that you support and strive to make real.
That brings us to Barack Obama. Geesh, he has a good presence and his diction and polished demeanor are everything that the top schools, colleges and universities promise to their well heeled clients, the parents of their students. He epitomizes a new diverse elite class that is coming into existence in the U.S. White men will not rule for much longer. Shifting demographics alone tells us that. I have been in the same room with him and he is , from my gut assessment which I trust most of the time, a sincere, intellectually sharp, and artfully well spoken. It does worry me that he has not been a successful leader in getting the war stopped.
Edwards. I really like him because of his wife. I won’t vote for someone just because of a spouse. I heard her speak at the BlogHer conference in Chicago this past summer and was awed by the direct uncensored manner in which she spoke. Stage IV cancer had not up to that point diminished her presence, drive, or the courage to speak her mind. She said that her blog is uncensored much to the occasional chagrin of her husband’s campaign coordinating publicity staff. I think I could relate to a man who has such a life partner. Now about him. I suspect that having a mill worker as a father gave him a very different life from Obama and Clinton. He was the first in his family to attend college. He started out in a private college, Clemson, and transferred to a state school, North Carolina State where he got a Textile Technology degree. When I transferred from private to state it was because of money. I suspect the same sort of thing played some role his transfer. Eventually he became a trial attorney and fought for individuals against corporations. So far so good. Blue collar. Worked for his education. Married an intelligent woman. Self made wealth. Knows what it is to lose a child; and understands health care concerns and adversity. I’m leaning in his direction — the only real concern I have about him is his cushy cosiness with the banking industry — the bad guys.
However, there’s one highly significant chapter in his Senate career omitted from Edwards’ campaign Web site. Edwards, who comes from a state where banking is big business, played a critical role in brokering legislation to allow banks to sell mutual funds and insurance, and to engage in other speculative ventures. This law, worth hundreds of billions to the banks, blasted a gigantic hole in the Glass-Steagal banking law’s firewall of protections designed to prevent the kinds of bank collapses that marked the Great Depression of the ’30s — meaning that it put the money of Joe Six-Pack depositors at risk. Such a gigantic boon to the banking lobby can hardly be classed as a populist victory. – LA Weekly 1/29/04
So what is a girl to do. Guess I will wear a clothes pin on my nose when I go to vote in the February 5th AZ Democratic Primary. I’m serious, I’m wearing a pink cl
othespin on my nose when I vote… even while I show my ID, and restate as I have the last few times I have voted, that requiring me to show an ID is unconstitutional.