No. 37, “I’ll be back,” The Terminator, 1984.

Political activist Scott Brannon said he wasn’t surprised to see a quick end to proposed legislation that would have given independent voters the opportunity to vote in Arizona’s presidential preference elections.

“We’re disappointed, but we’re not surprised,” said Brannon, co-chairman of the newly formed Grand Canyon Independent Voters association.

Arizona treats its presidential preference elections as closed elections – only Democrats can vote in the Democratic election, while only Republicans can vote in the Republican election. Theoretically, the same is true with the Libertarian and Green parties, though Libertarians didn’t conduct a presidential preference election in Arizona this year, and the Greens weren’t recognized as an official party until after the Feb. 5 polling date.

A bill that would have opened the presidential preference elections to independent passed the Senate, but it was gutted in the House. To use the American Film Institute’s No. 50 entry on its list most famous American movie quote, “Houston, we have a problem,” from Apollo 13, in 1995.

The Independent Voters argue that opening the system, as other states have, would give more voters the opportunity to participate in the candidate selection process.

Opponents argue that opening the system would allow for political skullduggery. They suggest that an organized group of voters from one party could cross over on Election Day and vote for the other party’s worst candidate, thereby easing the path to the White House for their own party’s top candidate.

Brannon doesn’t buy that argument, at least when it comes to registered independent, who comprise 27 percent of Arizona’s voter base.

“We understand there is some risk for foul play to sway an election, but when it comes to independents, we’re independents,” he said. That brings to mind No. 11 on the list of most famous movie quotes, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate,” from Cool Hand Luke, in 1967.

One way to move forward may be to allow registered independent voters to participate in any political party’s presidential preference election, but to restrict registered party members to their own parties’ elections, Brannon said. For that matter, the parties could work independently of each other. If one or two or three of the official parties allowed independents to vote in their presidential preference elections, those parties’ candidates could expect to collect a fair number of independents’ votes during general elections.

In the meantime, the Independent Voters association will push for a change to existing law.

“That’s why we organized and we’ll continue to build our coalition,” Brannon said. “We hope for a different outcome next session. We’re in for a long fight on this.”

They have time. The next presidential preference elections won’t be held until 2012, which brings to mind No. 31, “After all, tomorrow’s another day,” from Gone With the Wind, in 1939.

And if you’ve dropped into this conversation late and have no idea why it’s sprinkled with famous movie quotes, this earlier blog entry explains what’s going on.

Jon Kyl

Sen. Jon Kyl is using tax-filing day as a launching point for an anti-Democratic rip concerning the soon-to-expire 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. President Bush’s tax cuts will sunset and rates will increase unless Congress takes action to extend them. Kyl blames Democrats for inaction on that front. 

Here’s Kyl’s view on the subject, via a press release issued today by his office: 

“Tax day isn’t our favorite holiday.  And if anything makes Americans bitter, it’s seeing politicians in Washington overtax and waste their hard-earned money.   

“The Tax Foundation recently estimated that Americans will work a total of 113 days this year just to pay their federal, state and local taxes.  That is more than they work to pay for basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter.

“Congressional Democrats seem to cling to the policy that higher taxes and more government spending is the medicine for an economy that’s getting sick.  During a time of economic uncertainty, the last thing the government should do is reach into the pockets of American families and take even more money.  But that’s precisely what will happen if the Congressional Democrats get their wish and allow the current tax rates to expire.”  Kyl is the assistant Republican leader in the Senate. 

To be fair, I’ll post an Arizona Democrat’s interpretation about how April 15 represents Republican policies, as soon as such a release arrives, which I expect will happen before the end of the day.

Kris Mayes

It’s hard to imagine, but the Republicans are all but abandoning Arizona’s 1st Congressional District to the Democrats this year.

Arizona Corporation Commissioner Kris Mayes became at least the eighth Republican to consider and reject the idea of running to succeed Republican U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi. She backed out last week.

Of course, Renzi’s pending public corruption trial isn’t doing much to bolster the Republicans’ chances.

Equally important, probable Republican candidates are finding a lack of financial support from federal sources. That’s particularly significant in the sprawling 1^st District, which is larger geographically than the state of Pennsylvania.

At the moment, Arizona Mining Association president and former talk radio host Sydney Hay is the lone Republican candidate. Former state Sen. Ken Bennett, who rejected the idea of running once before, is considering the matter anew.

A potential Mayes-Bennett-Hey primary would split whatever base the Republicans could muster. Both Mayes and Bennett are from Prescott, the epicenter of the district’s GOP network.

“We’ve seen a lot of names of prominent Republicans considering jumping in this race. They’ll float the idea for a few weeks, and then bow out,” said state Democratic Party spokeswoman Emily Bittner.

In contrast, five Democratic candidates are energized about the prospect of winning the seat, Bittner said. “They’ve felt burdened for quite some time with the service, such as it was, of Rick Renzi. I think that’s an incredibly frustrating position to be in, to see a congressman, who at this point, has been indicted on 35 counts related to corruption,” she said.

At the national level, the Democrats are sure to first spend to keep first-term U.S. Reps. Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords in office. The next on the list for federal campaign funding will be the party’s nominee in the 1^st District.

Mayes said she hopes other Republicans will enter the congressional race. “I still think this seat can be won by a Republican; that Republican isn’t going to be me this year, but I still think it’s one that leans right of center. So far, I haven’t seen any Democrats who match the profile of the district,” she said.

The state has recognized a new political party, the Green Party, as an official political party for the 2008 elections.

That brings the total number of official parties to four – the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the Librarian Party and now, the Green Party. Together, they account for approximately 73 percent of all voters statewide. About 27 percent of voters statewide have independent status because they don’t belong to any of the official parties.

The Greens achieved official status by filing at least 20,449 voters signatures, as well as affidavits from 10 voters asking that they be recognized as Greens, according to the Secretary of State’s office. The Greens did better than required. They submitted 22,570 signatures on April 8.

As an official party, they’ll have their own primary elections on Sept. 2, and their candidates will be listed on the general election ballots on Nov. 4.

According to the Arizona Green Party’s Web site, it will adhere to the four pillars of Green parties everywhere – grassroots democracy, social justice, non-violence and ecological wisdom.

Hermy (left) and Rudolph

One of my favorite movie quotes didn’t make the American Film Institute’s official list of the 100 greatest American movie quotes. You’ve probably heard of the list, which was released in 2005, or at least several of the quotes from the list. Here’s a quick sampling…

No. 1: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” from Gone With the Wind in 1939.

No. 2: “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse,” from The Godfather in 1972.

No. 3 “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am,” from On the Waterfront in 1964.

I’d like to think the quote I have in mind didn’t make the list simply because it wasn’t actually muttered in a movie. It was delivered in a television program.

The line: “Hey, what do you say we both be independent together, huh?” from the ground-breaking TV special Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer in 1964.

Which brings us to a new organization called Grand Canyon Independent Voters. The collectively minded group of independent thinkers issued a press release this week calling for Arizona to open its presidential preference elections to independent voters. Right now, the Democratic presidential preference election is open only to registered Democrats, while the Republican presidential preference election is open to just registered Republicans.

“Independents pay taxes and deserve to have the right to vote in the presidential preference election. Independents are allowed to vote in all other primaries held in Arizona but are denied access to the ballot box in ultimately the most important primary, the presidential primary,” according to the association’s press release.

“The State of Arizona remains one of only 18 states that disenfranchise voters by not having open primaries.  The time has come for Arizona to join the majority of states and open its primaries to independent and unaffiliated voters,” according to the release.

The state Senate passed legislation by a 27-0 margin that would allow independents to vote in the contests, but frankly, I wonder whether the state House will give a damn.

John McCain

A surge of interest in the Democratic presidential candidates will present problems for Republican John McCain across the West, according to Democratic Party leaders from Arizona and other states who spoke in a teleconference Thursday.

They pointed to numbers that indicate Democrats have been turning out for their presidential primary elections in record numbers across the region, where the political landscape is changing. In Arizona for instance, 369,000 Democrats voted on Feb. 5, which marked a 130,000-voter increase from the previous record amount.

If all of that’s true, the big blue upheaval hasn’t exactly shown up in most polls across the eight-state Mountain West region.

Deep thinkers with the polling company Rasmussen Reports classify Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana “Safe Republican” states, at least for the presidential race. They catalogue Nevada and Colorado as “Toss Up” states, and New Mexico as a “Leans Democratic” state. For those keeping score at home, that’s five reds, two purples and one blue.

The Democrats in the teleconference offer a different assessment. They said Republican voters feel betrayed by McCain.

Arizona Democratic Party executive director Maria Weeg noted that McCain failed to win the GOP primaries in Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah and Colorado. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney placed first in each of those. McCain finished second in Colorado and Utah, third in Montana, and fourth in Wyoming.

“McCain’s losses around the West speak volumes. I mean, they’re really resounding. If you look at what happened in the Mountain West, McCain only won one state – and it was his home state,” Weeg said.

McCain won Arizona’s GOP presidential preference election on Feb. 5 with 48 percent of the vote. He was followed by Romney at 34 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 9 percent.

The U.S. senator from Arizona never opened a campaign headquarters in his home and hardly campaigned in Arizona, spending the bulk of his time before the Super Tuesday elections in other states, including New York and California, both of which he won.

The presidential primaries haven’t been conducted yet in the remaining Mountain West states. Idaho’s primaries are May 27 and New Mexico’s are June 3. Here’s a guess that McCain will win both GOP races.

The Democratic leaders did not respond to a question about whether they felt the state-by-state losses of their eventual presidential candidate foretold similar difficulties for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in those states. For example, Clinton beat Obama in Arizona. So if Obama ends up as the Democratic nominee, which seems likely, does his second-place finish in the state’s primary in February suggest that he doesn’t have a chance in the general election in November?

Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, faulted the Democrats’ assessment of McCain’s chances in the West.

“By ignoring every recent poll showing Sen. McCain’s strength among independents, the (Democratic National Committee) is proving that their Western strategy is as far removed from reality as their candidates’ liberal policies are removed from the values of the region’s voters,” he said in a statement.

“John McCain’s Western roots and proven record on taxes, Second Amendment rights, and protecting our national security stand in stark contrast to the flawed vision of Obama and Clinton,” Lindsay said. 

McCain’s biggest problem is within his own party, Weeg said. Republicans simply don’t trust him.

“He’s not the Straight Talk Express that he might have been when he ran for Senate the first time. He’s now what we’re referring to as the Double-Talk Express. He’s changed his stance on almost everything to pander to the most extreme portions of his party,” she said.

The Democrats said McCain has been cozy with lobbyists and AWOL from his Senate job, plus he’s weak on the economy and wrong on the war in Iraq. According to their assessment, that’s enough to tip the election toward the eventual Democratic nominee in Arizona.

“I see Arizona as winnable for a number of reasons. The first and foremost is that I don’t think McCain is that popular here. He may once have been – I don’t know – but certainly 48 percent of the vote from his own primary voters does not bode well for him,” Weeg said.

McCain’s handling of immigration has demonstrated his failure to lead, she said.

McCain and other Republican senators, notably Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, joined with Democrats to forge a compromise border security and immigration reform bill that failed to advance last year. Some Democrats said the bill was too strict in regulating immigration into the country, while some Republicans charged that it was too forgiving in allowing millions of illegal immigrants already living in the country to obtain citizenship.

Since the bill failed, McCain has changed his stance on the issues, going from an all-at-once approach to a two-step approach. He said he believes lawmakers should deal with the border first; and deal with immigration reform second.

Weeg said immigration will be a huge issue for Arizona voters in November.

“We work with people who come across the border. We play with them. We are next to them. We are their neighbors. So this is really an issue in Arizona,” she said. “And McCain, who once sponsored legislation to come up with some practical solutions to this increasing problem, has given in to the extremists in his party in order to garner this nomination. He’s not coming up with any real solutions at all.”

The Democrats talk about conducting a 50-state campaign. The real measure of their sincerity will be to see if Obama or Clinton runs a bona fided campaign in the 48th state.

Happy donkeys

The total number of voters statewide dipped since the presidential preference election on Feb. 5, however the number of registered Democrats increased.

Overall, the number of voters dropped by less than 1 percentage point from 2.71 million voters to 2.69 million voters March 1, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

“The decrease in the voter registration totals really reflect continuing voter roll clean-up efforts by county recorders,” Secretary of State Jan Brewer said in a statement.

The party-by-party details tell a different story though.

The number of Republicans fell less than 1 percentage point from 1.04 million voters to 1.03 million.

The number of Democrats increased just more than 1 percentage point from 905,000 voters to 916,000.

The number of Libertarians dwindled by 4 percentage points from 17,700 voters to 16,900.

And the number of independents dropped by 3 percentage points from 748,000 voters to 725,000.

Those types of numbers underscore why Democrats insist Arizona is becoming increasingly competitive.

In pure numbers, Republicans still outnumber Democrats by 121,000 voters. However, the Dems gained 11,200 voters during the last reporting period, while the GOP lost 5,500 voters. That means the Democrats narrowed the gap by 16,700 voters in a single reporting period.

It’s like an SAT question: If a donkey and an elephant facing the same direction start 121 miles apart and the donkey trots 11.2 mph forwards and elephant lumbers 5.5 mph backwards, how long will it take for the donkey to overtake the elephant?

Of course past results don’t guarantee future performance, but if those trends to continue unchanged, the Democratic Party will become the majority party in Arizona in about spring 2010, which would be just in time for a Janet Napolitano-John Shadegg U.S. Senate race.

And in the meantime, state Democratic Party officials contend that independents break about 2-1 toward Democratic candidates.

Another interesting point is the number of independents decreased. Until late last year, the number of new independent voters joining the state’s voter roles was greater rate than number of new Democrats and Republicans combined. Even last year though, Democrats were registering more new voters than Republicans.

The next couple of voter registration reports, which will reflect the parties’ efforts to register new voters before the fall primary and general elections, should provide greater insight into whether the current numbers are just quirky blips of statistics, or early indications of a dramatic shift in Arizona politics. 

A final thought on Super Tuesday…

My favorite dark horse candidates failed in their attempts to win Arizona’s presidential preference elections.

Democrat Sandy Whitehouse, a Tucson-area resident who ran on the platform that she would cut government spending by saving a line of type on all presidential correspondence, garnered 577 votes. That came just 200,814 votes shy of fellow challenger Hillary Clinton’s winning total.

Meanwhile, Republican Michael P. Shaw, a Glendale resident who said he ran to represent the ’hood and the God of Israel, attracted 59 votes. That was a mere 227,701 votes short of rival John McCain’s tally.

Alas, there’s always 2012. Remember that McCain didn’t do so hot the first time he ran for president either.

Barack Obama

Campaign officials for some of the presidential candidates have been trying to persuade Arizona voters to register in time to vote in the presidential preference election on Feb. 5. The deadline is Monday.

Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign sent an e-mail Saturday to supporters in Arizona to remind them to.

The e-mail stated: “You can be part of our movement in Arizona, but you must be registered to vote as a Democrat. And Arizona’s voter registration deadline is January 7 – just a few days from now. Make your support count. Register to vote today.”

In accordance with state law, only voters registered in recognized political parties are permitted to vote in the constest that will help determine the major parties’ presidential nominee. Registered Republicans will be given Republican ballots. Registered Democrats will be given Democrat ballots. Registered independents, who comprise 28.1 percent of the state’s voter base, won’t be allowed to vote at all.

Internet magazine publisher and independent U.S. House candidate Annie Loyd said she doubts many independents will rush to change their status.

“The independents that I’ve spoken to over the last week in particular, and in the last month, I have not heard of anybody re-registering to vote in the presidential primary election,” she said. “In fact, I know of more people that have just reregistered as independents and forgone their registration as Democrat or a Republican, because they’re not drawn to any of the candidates.”

Many independents are waiting for an independent candidate or a third-party candidate to emerge on the national scene, said Loyd, who is running against incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. John Shadegg.

She noted that several media outlets reported early this week that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed to speak at a nonpartisan conference Sunday in
Oklahoma, in possible preparation for an independent presidential bid. The conference is being staged by Unity08, a group also hopes to advance a nonpartisan ticket.

Loyd said, “What’s important is that independents don’t fee represented. They don’t feel that either party represents them.” She is seeking a seat in Arizona’s 3^rd Congressional District, which takes in central and northern Phoenix. 

The White House

Sandy Whitehouse, who is one of Arizona’s official presidential candidates, is running for the White House on the strength of her name. Naturally.

“I’m running for president because my name is Whitehouse,” Whitehouse said. If elected, she said will consolidate the first and second lines of all presidential correspondence, thus saving the federal government money associated with printing the words “President Whitehouse” and the words “White House” on letterhead.

She told me that the savings would be used to fund universal healthcare, education for all children, grants to stop global warming and a guest-worker program. Furthermore, she would halt federal funding for war profiteers, atom bombs, fusion bombs, uranium weaponry, big talk and threats to under-developed third-world countries.

“I figure with those two objectives, I will be able to fund all the things this country needs,” said Whitehouse, a Democrat. Furthermore, she’s retired, so she has enough time on her hands to run the country, she said.

Whitehouse is a great-grandmother who lives in Corona De Tucson, which is just outside of
Tucson. She married into her presidential-sounding name decades ago. Her husband, Bruce Whitehouse, is Corona De Tucson’s fire chief. “It’s a good English name,” she said.

Whitehouse said she is running a self-funded campaign to avoid the scourge of lobbyists. So far, she has spent a total of 41 cents, which was used to buy a stamp to send her nominating paperwork to the Secretary of State’s Office, though she may double or even triple her cash outlay before Feb. 5.

Whitehouse said she is prepared to debate all her Democratic opponents, even frontrunner Hillary Clinton. “I like Hillary. I’m particularly found of her choice of husbands,” she said.

Whitehouse said she is counting on her own husband to vote for her, which brings her current projected vote count to precisely four. She said she is trying to secure three more – two grandchildren and a grandson-in-law. “I’ll have seven votes. And the way this is spread out over a large field, I could win, because I think that’s a solid block,” she said.