Voters Know Better



Some politicians just want it too badly. They are just too obvious. Everyone who sees what they are doing knows what they are doing. Yet these same politicians seem to have no idea that they aren’t fooling anyone.
Exhibit A for today is Arizona Secretary of State wannabe Michele Reagan.
For years she has wanted to be elected to statewide office, especially Secretary of State. Facing a daunting primary challenge just to retain her State Senate seat, Reagan decided that 2014 was the perfect time to run for it. The only problem is that after more than a decade in the legislature, she really didn’t have much of a record to run on as related to the SOS office, and what record she was known for was left of center on a host of issues.
So Reagan asked that a special committee be set up in the State Senate and that it be called “Elections”. After all, what better way to demonstrate that you are qualified to be SOS than to have served as Chairman of the Elections Committee? The net result of a year’s worth of work was a gigantic omnibus bill that managed to outrage enough people that it united the Democrats, Libertarians, and Green parties in opposition, and they actually went out and got enough signatures to put it on the 2014 ballot. That prevents it from even becoming law in the meantime. The other major bill the committee passed succeeded in raising the contribution limits from $912 per person for a statewide candidate to $4,000 per person for a statewide candidate. Pretty helpful if you were going to, oh we don’t know, maybe run statewide for Secretary of State? Of course that bill was so badly written that it will have to be fixed on an emergency basis this year. So one big messy bill that didn’t become law and is going to bring Democrats, Greens, and Libertarians to the polls this November, and another bill that made a mess that now has to be cleaned up.
With a still-thin resume for her upcoming race, Reagan is now pandering shamelessly on the topic of “freebies”. It appears that after more than a decade of enjoying freebies given to Legislators, Reagan would now like to end the practice on her way out the door. Sounds like a great PR move, especially when the Fiesta Bowl scandal is still on people’s minds. That said, we don’t expect Republican voters to be fooled. You can’t take the tickets, then act like you are outraged by the practice. Stay tuned to find out how committed Reagan is to this particular pander. Will she reimburse everyone for the cost of her tickets, meals, etc.? Either way, we’re pretty sure voters know better.