Arizona is a blasted hellscape

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Bal
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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Bal » Tue Aug 21, 2018 10:51 pm

I physically shivered when I was reminded that Arpaio is running.

Obviously, in a very literal sense, we're getting rid of McSally on the local level by default, but having lived in her Fief for three years, I really don't want her to be the defacto senior senator from Arizona.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Wed Aug 22, 2018 10:47 am

No indeed, and I'll support Sinema in the fall despite her many faults.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Bal » Sun Aug 26, 2018 6:04 pm


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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Mon Aug 27, 2018 12:37 am

If I were writing this farce, Ducey would now appoint McSally to take McCain's seat, leaving Kelli Ward as the Republican nominee for Flake's. Ward's Facebook comment then singlehandedly sinks her campaign and gives the seat to the Democrat.

Hell, while I'm writing fiction, let's say Abboud gets the nomination in a surprise upset, so Ward's idiocy doesn't just get a Democrat elected to the Senate in Arizona, but a Muslim at that.

That's a hacky premise, and it ain't gonna happen. But it's not any hackier or less likely than anything else that's happened in American politics in the past three years.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Grath » Mon Aug 27, 2018 10:30 am

Thad wrote:If I were writing this farce, Ducey would now appoint McSally to take McCain's seat, leaving Kelli Ward as the Republican nominee for Flake's. Ward's Facebook comment then singlehandedly sinks her campaign and gives the seat to the Democrat.

Hell, while I'm writing fiction, let's say Abboud gets the nomination in a surprise upset, so Ward's idiocy doesn't just get a Democrat elected to the Senate in Arizona, but a Muslim at that.

That's a hacky premise, and it ain't gonna happen. But it's not any hackier or less likely than anything else that's happened in American politics in the past three years.

Meanwhile, in this cursed reality, Ducey will probably appoint Arpaio.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Bal » Mon Aug 27, 2018 4:04 pm

Fortunately, he can't. No one currently on the ballot is viable.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Mon Aug 27, 2018 4:54 pm

Didn't know that. I'd seen McSally floated as a crackpot what-if choice, but I don't remember where.

Does the rule still hold after Ward and Arpaio (presumably) lose tomorrow's primary?

Something of a moot point, obviously; there are a number of reasons Ducey wouldn't pick either of them, starting with being up for re-election in six weeks.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Bal » Mon Aug 27, 2018 5:21 pm

I'm not sure how it works once they're out, but I think that is a moot if for no other reason than that the appointment is supposed to be timely.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Mon Aug 27, 2018 6:21 pm

Right, but the primary's tomorrow. If polling numbers are anywhere near accurate, Ward and Arpaio will be out of the race by Wednesday. Ducey has said he won't appoint a replacement until after the funeral, which is Thursday.

Time says Ducey can appoint Ward after she loses the primary, but I don't see what he'd have to gain by it; the latest polls have her at 22% in her own party's primary. Even as a base play, she doesn't make much sense. And that's BEFORE her latest fuckup.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Wed Aug 29, 2018 12:27 am

Live coverage.

No big surprises yet. The big races are going to be Ducey/Garcia and McSally/Sinema, as expected. Douglas may lose her primary. I'd say "good", but if there's one thing I've learned by this point, it's that there's always somebody worse. I didn't think Douglas could be worse than Huppenthal, and yet here we are.

The big news of the day is that there was a technical fuckup and some precincts didn't open on time. This appears to be down to setting up the networked systems for looking up voter registration information.

And look, I get that these kinds of mistakes happen; my long list of temp jobs includes a Windows 7 rollout where the entire first night was a failure and they fired almost the entire crew.

But here's my question.

What the fuck is wrong with paper?

You're only allowed to vote at your own precinct, right?

So print out the list of everyone who's registered to vote at that precinct. When somebody shows up to vote, cross their name off. That's how they used to do it, and what the fuck is wrong with that system?

I mean, I can see a couple of potential pitfalls: somebody shows up to the wrong precinct, or somebody shows up to the right precinct but isn't on the list for some reason.

Okay. So in the latter case, have them cast a provisional ballot and sort it out later.

And for the former case? Set up one computer where you can type in somebody's address and look up what their correct polling station is, should a mistake happen.

Anyway, shit's dysfunctional. This is County Recorder Adrian Fontes's first rodeo; we elected him in 2016, after the previous County Recorder, Helen Purcell, fucked up the Democratic primaries that election.

Maybe Fontes blew it because it's his first time doing this. Or maybe our election system really is FUBAR and what happened in '16 wasn't Purcell's fault after all.

Secretary of State Michelle Reagan lost her primary. I wouldn't be surprised if that was fallout from the '16 election issues too.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Bal » Wed Aug 29, 2018 6:30 pm

At least it was just the primary. Obviously everyone should have ready access to their polling location as soon as it's open, but it would be worse in the general elections.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Thu Aug 30, 2018 12:36 am

The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the Invest in Ed initiative will not appear on the November ballot.

Prop. 207 would have raised income-tax rates by 3.46 percentage points to 8 percent on individuals who earn more than $250,000 or households that earn more than $500,000. It also would have raised individual rates by 4.46 percentage points to 9 percent for individuals who earn more than $500,000 and households that earn more than $1 million.


The ruling centered around a mistake in the summary on the petition:

The complaint alleged the petitions were misleading because they referred to the proposed tax-rate increase as a "percent" increase and not the more accurate "percentage point" increase. According to the complaint, the tax rate would have seen a 76 and 98 percent increase and not a 3.46 and 4.46 percent increase.


And look. You guys know me. If somebody refers to an increase from 4.54% to 8% as a "3.46% increase", I'm the first motherfucker to say "Well actually, that's a 76% increase."

But there isn't a motherfucker alive who hears "We're increasing the tax rate by 3.46%" who doesn't know what you actually mean. Most people don't know the difference between percent and percentage points. And those of us who do, understand when you're using the wrong one, and what you actually meant to say.

It would have been different if that was what it had said in the text of the initiative. (And the text of the initiative did have some mistakes; most notably, it failed to account for inflation.) But we're not talking about the language in the initiative; we're talking about the language on the petition. Which, while technically incorrect, was clear and understandable to every single person who signed it.

I think this is a bad decision by the court.

But I also think the people who put together the initiative were sloppy. A good proofreader would have caught that mistake. A good lawyer would have caught the inflation mistake in the text of the bill. A whole lot of people put a whole lot of effort into standing outdoors in the heat gathering signatures; it's very frustrating that the people who wrote the language of the initiative and the petition don't seem to have invested as much care as the people who gathered the signatures.

It's a clusterfuck all around. I'm angry.

But hopefully this will do some good for Democrats in November. Once again, Republicans are standing in the doorway, doing everything they can to stop teachers from earning a fair wage, in defiance of the will of voters. Garcia is going to run on that. Hoffman is going to run on that. Sinema...well, who the fuck knows what Sinema is going to run on, besides "avoid alienating any Republicans."

But as rotten as this is, it's a reminder that Republicans are terrible. And six weeks before the election, that might benefit Democratic candidates.

As for the initiative, guess we'll try again in two years. And hopefully get the language right this time.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Thu Aug 30, 2018 1:28 am

In less infuriating news: the primary results are a pretty positive sign.

Most notably, this is the highest turnout ever recorded in a Democratic primary in Arizona. Not for a primary in a midterm; the highest primary turnout period. And that's not just because Democrats are getting out and voting (though they are); it's because independents are voting Democratic.

The Year of the Woman does seem to have made an impact on the Democratic side; Kathy Hoffman beat David Schapira for the superintendent nom, in a surprise upset. And while the corporation commission race hasn't been called yet, it looks like it's going to be Sandra Kennedy and Kiana Maria Sears, even though Bill Mundell was the most experienced candidate and he and Kennedy were running together.

It didn't work out for Kelly Fryer, who came in third place for the governor nom, but she was a late entrant with no political experience running as a progressive in Arizona, so that's not altogether surprising.

On the Republican side, corrupt corporation commissioner Tom Forese has lost the primary, and while the superintendent race hasn't been called yet, it's looking like Diane Douglas will probably lose her primary too. So, y'know, congratulations to Republican primary voters too; you guys did good this time.

(Note: I reserve the right to rescind this praise if the nominees turn out to be somehow even worse than the incumbents they defeated. I don't know how that's possible, but I never imagined Douglas could be worse than Huppenthal, either, and yet here we are.)

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Sun Sep 02, 2018 9:50 pm

One of the nice things about McSally winning an outright majority is, fuck Kelli Ward.

It refutes the "Arpaio was a spoiler" narrative. Of course it's reductive to say "if he hadn't run, Ward still would have lost," because of course if Arpaio had never entered the race it would have been a different race, and Ward would have said a completely different series of stupid things, and who knows what the final result would have been.

But given the numbers we've got, and assuming every single Arpaio vote would have gone to Ward if he hadn't been in the race? She'd have still lost by 6 points.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Bal » Sun Sep 02, 2018 10:05 pm

I'm just glad to see Kelli Ward fail at every turn. She is utterly intolerable.

RE: John McCain's replacement. It's more common in the House to go for the spouse, but I'd prefer Cindy McCain. She's basically just a philanthropist, and I can't imagine her doing very much until we get another bite at the apple in two years, but that's more or less best case at this point.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Mongrel » Mon Sep 03, 2018 12:35 am

What about McCain's son? What do you guys think about that option?
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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Mon Sep 03, 2018 1:57 am

Don't know anything about him. I'm not aware that he's ever shown any interest in holding office.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Mongrel » Mon Sep 03, 2018 2:20 am

I didn't realize McCain had so many kids, so I actually have to expand that the one I meant was his middle son, Jack McCain.

All I know about him is that he and his wife, who is black, are career military and they both seem to enjoy trolling the absolute fuck out of rednecks who're mad about miscegenation.

Doesn't mean he's a good guy overall or that he'd be a good senator. But one of John McCain's few redeeming points was his being pretty firmly in favour of strong and bipartisan immigration reform (also nominally "anti-racist", but the sort where you never actually support any measures which would upset white folks) and Jack would seem to lean even more in that direction, which is automatically a big advantage over most Republicans already.
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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Tue Sep 04, 2018 5:21 pm

Ducey has picked John Kyl to fill McCain's seat.

Those of you outside Arizona will remember Kyl as the guy who claimed that over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is related to performing abortions, and after the press pointed out that it's actually about 3%, had it stricken from the record and defended it as "not intended to be a factual statement."

So, y'know, he's awful, but pretty bog-standard for a Republican in 2018. It could have been worse. And given that he already retired from the Senate once, I don't expect him to run again in 2020.

If Cindy McCain was Ducey's safest choice, Kyl was his second-safest. He's a mainstream choice, at least by the standards of Arizona politicians; he's palatable to the Republican establishment and the right wing, and Democrats can't really paint him as out of touch with Arizona voters, given that they elected him to three terms.

Expect another rubber stamp for McConnell.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Bal » Tue Sep 04, 2018 10:43 pm

Yeah, John Kyl was the other safe pick. Given the nature of the law in question, appointing someone the people of Arizona have already voted in to office is a reasonable choice. Kyl isn't going to rock anyone's boat, but neither was McCain at this point.

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