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…

Republican state Rep. Andy Tobin is forming an exploratory committee as he considers running for incumbent Republican Rick Renzi’s seat in the U.S. House.

Renzi is under federal investigation for possible public corruption and has announced that he will not seek re-election in Arizona’s 1^st Congressional District. The vast district takes in huge regions northern, central and eastern Arizona, including most of booming Pinal County.Republican state Rep. Bill Konopnicki was widely expected to join the federal race, but last week announced that he’ll take a pass. That left a huge void on the Republican side of that race.

Enter Tobin.

“By the end of the week, we’re going to open an exploratory committee and see what our opportunities are, see if our supporters are there,” Tobin told me.

“It’s a huge district. It’s almost the size of the state of Illinois,” he said.

 Um, not to get all technical and everything, but Illinois is 57,918 square miles in size, while Arizona’s 1^st Congressional District is 58,608 square miles. So, the congressional district that includes Arizona’s portion of Four Corners actually is 690 square miles larger than Illinois, which by the way, ranks as the 25^th largest state in the country.

“It’s bigger? That big?” Tobin asked. “That’s huge.”

The job is huge as well. It would require Tobin to be away in Washington most of the year. That’s a serious consideration. Tobin, 49, has five children – two adult sons, plus two high schoolers and a middle schooler.

“Basically, I’ve got a yellow light from the family, because we’re still in the thought process as well. My business partner gave me a green light. I don’t know if that means he wants to keep me away from my office or not,” he said.

Tobin, a resident of Paulden, has an employee benefits company, TLC Employee Benefits, in the
Prescott area.

Tobin said he has been thinking about entering the race for the past month or so, but considered Konopnicki to be the front-runner.

“When Mr. Konopnicki got out, we thought we had better open an exploratory committee right away. I’m going to guess that we have about 30 days to get a good shot at it, to get our information together. We won’t wait long,” Tobin said.

He likely will make a decision about whether to run by March 1, he said.

Meanwhile, the lone Republican who’s in the race is radio talk show host Sydney Hay.

On the Democrat side, former state Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, environmental attorney Howard Shanker and former TV reporter Mary Kim Titla all are in.