Yet as this Mordor-like darkness envelops us, I spy three Democratic candidates who might at least offer Dems an inkling of how to fight. Two of them are in very close statewide races. The third is a novice and faces an overwhelming challenge, and yet, his message rings truer than just about any Dem I've seen lately.
The first two are Democratic stars who are unafraid of giving their opponents hell: state treasurer candidate Andrei Cherny and state attorney general hopeful Felecia Rotellini.
Dumber than a bag of bricks, our
nightmare for the next four years, Governor
Jan Brewer.
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I've been watching Rotellini throw elbows since the Democratic primary began. The woman has more steel in her than the Golden Gate Bridge.
A former assistant attorney general under Republican Grant Woods (who's endorsed her) and Goddard and, later, the state's banking regulator under Governor Napolitano, Rotellini brings her attack-dog skills as a prosecutor to the table — and she's honed the art of putting her opponents on the defensive from jump. I wish we could clone her and run her for every office in the state.
Take, for example, her performance in the Channel 8 Horizon debate with Republican AG contender Tom Horne, state schools superintendent and no slouch himself in sparring with rivals. After all, he's the guy who sent former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas into early retirement, a feat for which Arizonans should be grateful.
Rotellini blasted Horne in her opening statement, drawing the distinction between herself and Horne with this ice pick to the jugular: "I've prosecuted securities fraud. [Horne's] committed it . . . I've cracked down on border crimes. He just talks about it."
Essentially, Rotellini borrowed heavily from Andrew Thomas' playbook by highlighting the Securities and Exchange Commission's 40-year-old trading ban against Horne. She hit Horne hard and kept coming after him, Terminator-style, with lines like: "If you'll lie to your regulator . . . you'll lie to anyone."
Horne was on the ropes from that point on, and though he's attempted to hang Rotellini's early criticism of SB 1070 in the primaries around her neck, she's swatted aside Horne's cavils.
"Senate Bill 1070 doesn't go far enough," she said at one point, noting that it does nothing to achieve the GOP mantra to "secure the border," though she would be obligated to defend it as attorney general.
Now, would I rather Rotellini not have made that statement regarding 1070? Yes. In many ways, it was a missed opportunity, a chance to point out that 1070 was a bad idea, will be tied up in the courts indefinitely, and effectively scapegoats Latinos for Republicans' economic failures. But I must admit that she thereby avoided debate over 1070 in the short time allotted, giving her more time to slice Horne on ethical issues.
"I've received a lot of feedback from . . . Democrats, in general," Rotellini told me recently, "that they like to see a candidate who will call out the opponent on the negatives."
State treasurer candidate Andrei Cherny has been blessed by a uniquely flawed opponent in ex-Cold Stone Creamery exec Doug Ducey and by a race that generally has not had to concern itself with the subject of immigration. What's at stake in the treasurer's race is Arizona's $10 billion investment portfolio, which the Treasurer's Office oversees.
Cherny also didn't have to worry about his primary, as the former Clinton adviser and Arizona assistant attorney general was the only Dem up for the post. So Cherny began attacking his probable Republican rival early on. And with Ducey, he had plenty to work with.
Multimillionaire Ducey never has fully disclosed his financial assets, was late on paying taxes on his opulent Paradise Valley home, has been a consistent traffic scofflaw, and wasn't able to file Cold Stone's annual reports on time with the Arizona Corporation Commission.
Worse than all that, as I've detailed before ("Ducey Disaster," August 12), numerous former Cold Stone franchisees allege that what they call Ducey's unfair business practices and broken business model drove them into bankruptcy. Cherny never has given Ducey a quiet moment on the issue, even using some ex-Cold Stone franchisees in his campaign commercials.
Cherny credited his experience as a former prosecutor in helping him go after Ducey.
"I've gone into a courtroom and looked somebody in the eye, whether they're a corporate crook or a gang thug, and been confident that [I'm] on the side of justice. [You can't] back down from that kind of fight."
In what everyone acknowledges is a bleak year for the Dems, Rotellini and Cherny are in the running because of that prosecutor-like willingness to char their opponents.
The third prospect that Dems should look hard at is state Senator Russell Pearce's challenger in Legislative District 18, newcomer Andrew Sherwood. He has an uphill battle against the goliath Mexican-hater Pearce, but the demographics in LD18 are ripe for exploitation by the Dems, if they're willing to target the architect of so much that's wrong with this state.
Dems are under-represented in Mesa, but there's a large independent bloc of voters, a growing Hispanic population, and many old-time Mesa residents who are sick of Pearce taking them for granted so he can play Lord of Immigration.
Pearce's last general election rival in 2008 — newcomer Judah Nativio — was bested by Pearce by a little more than 5,000 votes. And that was in a presidential election year. Thus, Pearce could be vulnerable in an off-year election, where voter turnout will be far more crucial.
