Political newcomer Jeffrey Brown e-mailed me the other day. He was frustrated that the Tribune hasn’t included him in stories discussing the emerging field of U.S. House candidates in Arizona’s 1^st Congressional District race.

Brown and I spoke briefly by telephone before he hung up on me.

He is one of four Democrats seeking the office. It has been a low-profile campaign so far. The Federal Election Commission has no record of Brown raising or spending any money on the race for the office that Republican incumbent Rep. Rick Renzi is vacating.

According to his campaign Web site, which is still under construction, Brown worked for 13 years at United Airlines before leaving the company in 2004 to work on the John Kerry/John Edwards presidential campaign.

The Web site summarizes Brown’s time since then this way:

In 2005 Jeffrey, suffered a life changing event which found him hospitalized and in a nursing home, temporarily confined to a wheelchair. “This experience provided me with an insight to the potential future of many Americans, and the struggles of quality of life for the elderly and the disabled. This experience has strengthened my resolve to improve the quality of health care in this country, and I hope to give a voice to all of those who are often forgotten and neglected in our society.” 

Jeffrey is currently employed part time for Discount Cab Company, and is currently active in the Dennis Kucinich for President Campaign as the Southwest GLBT coordinator, and is a fervent supporter of equality for all.

The other Democrats in the race are former state Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, environmental attorney Howard Shanker and former TV reporter Mary Kim Titla.

On the Republican side, the lone announced candidate is radio talk show host Sydney Hay. State Rep. Bill Konopnicki widely was expected to enter the race, but he bowed out, which could clear the way for other Republicans enter the race.

The thin GOP field has created a fair amount of intrigue about other potential candidates. And as news reporters and former news reporters know, non-denials are nearly the same thing as admissions. Stay tuned…

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 10:18 pm and is filed under Ann Kirkpatrick, CD 1 race, Howard Shanker, Jeffrey Brown, John Edwards, Mary Kim Titla, Rick Renzi, Sydney Hay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.