Non-voters

This news just in: Republicans croak.

Last week while I was researching a story about the Arizona Republican Party’s dismal showings during the last quarter in both voter registrations and financial contributions, Republican political consultants Bert Coleman and Nathan Sproul attributed the party’s problems to chairman Randy Pullen.

Coleman, president of Phoenix-based Coleman Dahm & Associates, and Sproul, president of Tempe-based Sproul & Associates, already were up to speed on the figures that were released earlier in the week by the Arizona Secretary of State and Federal Election Commission.

Coleman and Sproul get paid for knowing such things and for knowing how such information can be used to get Republicans elected. They’re credible sources and they certainly know the buzz among party insiders and voters alike. They told me Pullen was dividing the party with his anti-immigration reform rhetoric.

Naturally, I tried to reach Pullen for a response. State party officials declined to make him available and instead put me through to state party executive director Sean McCaffrey.

I explained the gist of my findings to McCaffrey and asked him for his take on the registration figures and finance numbers, and in particular, whether he thought there was any merit to the GOP insiders’ criticism of Pullen. McCaffrey was familiar with the topics, because he had fielded a call by Arizona Republic reporter Matthew Benson, who was working on a similar story, a short while earlier.

It turned out to be an interesting interview. McCaffrey offered this bit of insight about the third-quarter voter registration numbers, which show Democrats outpaced Republicans by nearly a 4-1 margin statewide in signing up new voters… 

“The most recent report from the Secretary of State, you have to be careful, because the numbers that they reflect are two things – one, new registrations; and inactive voters that are removed from the files because they don’t respond to mail, because they no longer live in the state, because they’ve been purged for any number of reasons. And so the total numbers that are published in that press release don’t reflect totals of just registrations. So you have to be careful in just calling them registration numbers, just by themselves.”

I replied, “Yeah, I’m aware of that, of course. And you’re also aware that Democrats and independents croak and move away as well. Dying is not just a Republican phenomenon.”

McCaffrey said, “I just want to make sure, because your colleagues over at the Republic, it seems to be a new thing for them and they’ve been here for 60 years or however long you’ve been here. And I just want to make sure it’s not going to be a miss-told story again. So, I’m the new person and I’m continually surprised at how often I correct Democrat fallacies in this state in the media.”

Oh.

So to get this important point on the record: Republicans croak – despite any fallacies to the contrary that have been printed in the Republic or spread by Democrats. In an effort to double-source McCaffrey’s GOP Finite Life Theorem, I tried to get confirmation from noted Arizona Republican Barry Goldwater, but he was unavailable for comment, because, as fate would have it, he’s dead.

My story about the GOP’s living voters and contributors can be accessed here: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/100676.

And one final point, Tribune reporters and Republic reporters definitely are not colleagues. They’re rivals  –  to the bitter end.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 11:45 am and is filed under Randy Pullen, The elephants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.