Yesterday I reported that Olivia Cortes, the sham candidate in the November recall election of Arizona Senator Russell Pearce, withdrew from the race, just hours before a scheduled candidates debate.
When Cortes announced her decision to enter the race this spring, no one knew who she was. She's a retired single mother who's never been active in politics. You'd think an unknown person like Cortes would crave media attention and hit the campaign trail daily, allowing voters to get to know her. Curiously, she refused to meet with reporters and she did not schedule any public events. As she prepared to take on the most powerful politician in Arizona, the author of SB 1070 and countless other bigoted laws, Cortes had no campaign staff or consultants; she said she was the chair and treasurer of her campaign, and she had $500 in her war chest.
Something stunk to high heaven, and almost immediately skeptics floated the notion that Cortes was a plant by the Pearce squad, a dishonest ploy to steal votes from challenger Jerry Lewis. In Mesa's ultra-conservative District 18, the Republican Lewis is a compelling candidate -- a school official, successful businessman, Mormon leader, and longtime resident. He's not the kind of person Pearce can smear as an "open-border socialist," which is the typical fear-mongering ruse he uses against Democratic challengers. The Dems stayed out of the recall and supported Lewis, knowing they didn't have a prayer in District 18. Yes, Lewis is conservative, but he's not a xenophobic leaking brainpan like Pearce. Further, if elected Lewis wouldn't be President of the Senate, which Pearce is -- controlling the schedule, appointing committee chairs, determining which bills will be heard.
Jerry Lewis, then, is Russell Pearce's nightmare challenger, someone with a chance to win in Mesa. So, if another name were on the ballot, specifically a Latina name like "Olivia Cortes," she and Lewis might split the considerable anti-Pearce vote and the Senator could walk away with a victory. Pearce of course denied the accusation that his team recruited Cortes, as did, initially at least, his Tea Party lackeys.
Who Then?
So, who paid thousands of dollars to collect enough signatures to put Olivia Cortes's name on the ballot? She says she didn't. Who created and monitored her website? She didn't. Who sent letters to the editor under her name calling her opponents racist? She didn't. Who paid for and placed her campaign signs around Mesa? She didn't.
As suspicions grew, fueled by Cortes's refusal to talk with reporters, and the connection of more and more dots between Pearce and Cortes, even the mainstream media joined the probe. Finally, lawyers for Citizens for a Better Arizona, the group that initiated the recall, forced a hearing last Friday when operatives in the Pearce campaign were asked, under oath, to explain their involvement in the Cortes scandal. Cortes also testified, saying she didn't know who was the benefactor behind her candidacy. The paid signature collectors, however, said they wanted Cortes's name on the ballot in order to "dilute" the vote for Lewis. Tea Party activists said they recruited Cortes, paid for the signature gathering, and created her website.
The speculation was over. They had proof. Funny then that Pearce would blame "the games the media plays" for this sorry story. It's the liberal media's fault, naturally. Go figure.
After Friday's hearing, Judge Edward Burke said it was obvious Cortes was a shill for the Pearce team, but as yet he had no legal reason to remove her name from the ballot.
"The court finds that Pearce supporters recruited Cortes, a political neophyte, to run in the recall election to siphon Hispanic votes from Lewis to advance Pearce's recall-election bid." Arizona Republic
Yesterday Cortes saved Judge Burke from having to make a further decision about her candidacy. Just hours before a debate in Mesa, Cortes bowed out of the race. Today, Cortes's website says,
Due to the constant intimidation and harassment of me, my family, friends and neighbors I have decided to drop out of the race for Senator in LD 18. Link
One wonders who wrote that.
It could be that the bumbling Cortes, who really had no political platform, knew she was in over her head. If you saw the one TV interview she granted, you know what I mean. It could be she wasn't prepared for the heightened media scrutiny. I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.
Most likely, however, her decision to abandon the race had something to do with another hearing that was scheduled for today, to which lawyer Tom Ryan had subpoenaed Pearce's brother, Lester, and other members of his family (Lester's two daughters collected signatures for Cortes). Lester Pearce, you see, is a judge who is forbidden to participate in elections except his own. Ryan said the evidence is "very strong" that Lester Pearce was "involved in meetings in the Russell Pearce campaign to strategize with them." Oops.
"You presume she dropped out," [Ryan] replied. "Plain and simple, it's the Pearce forces that realized the jig was up. They did not want this hearing to go forward...they wanted out of this." New Times
Next Steps
With Cortes on the sidelines, Ryan said he will not pursue the case further, but he and fellow counsel Michael Wright are turning over a massive pile of evidence they've collected to the authorities:
He stated that he is making the evidence that he and Wright have amassed available to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, the Arizona Attorney General's Office, and the Arizona Secretary of State, evidence supposedly linking political operative Constantin Querard and Pearce's campaign directly to Cortes' diversionary and fraudulent candidacy.
"We have alleged very serious violations here," Ryan declared. "What we have alleged is that this campaign has engaged in a Class 5 felony. It's now up to the authorities to pursue it. We've done all we can do." New Times
Today, no one doubts that Cortes was a diversionary plant, an arrogant Tea Party tactic. The questions are: Will the GOP-controlled county and state agencies pursue the matter further? And how far up the ladder does the corruption go? Beyond the paid petition gatherers and the Tea Party's admitted involvement, was Pearce orchestrating or at least aware of the sham? Or, as lawyer Ryan suggests in the comment above, was GOP political operative Constantin Querard behind everything? Pearce and his Tea Party pinheads are always blathering about "the rule of law." Okay, let's go there.
A week ago Channel 12 reporter Brahm Resnik unearthed an email from Querard to other Republicans that said, "I need to find a couple of people to be candidates for the Pearce recall. Know any patriots who are team players?" When confronted by Resnik, Querard said he was trying to recruit Democrats! Insert your favorite facepalm here. A Pearce supporter, Querard is a political mover and shaker who fancies himself Arizona's version of Karl Rove, an operative who'd do anything to win, where the ends always justifies the means. In a 2004 scheme right out of Rove's playbook,
Querard had been caught sending out thousands of mailers to unsuspecting voters, making it seem as if the mailers were from the county GOP, asking if recipients wanted an early ballot sent to them. The mailers were sent back to Querard's Ahwatukee post office box, and Querard mined them for data, which he then sold to candidates he was representing. New Times
When the GOP chair discovered this scam, even he was incensed, saying Querard used "illegal tactics to launder tax-exempt non-profit money into politics." During his press conference yesterday, Tom Ryan encouraged the media to stay on the Cortes story, particularly their probes of powerful people like Querard who'd stoop to recruiting a clueless candidate simply because she's a Hispanic woman who might siphon anti-Pearce votes from Jerry Lewis:
"Your job is to continue to ask the tough questions of the Pearce campaign. You should go out and talk to Mr. Querard. You should go out and talk to [Pearce adviser Chuck Coughlin]. And you should not let Mr. Pearce up for air. Because they know full well what happened here." He urged them to check out the various independent expenditure committees involved and to stay on Querard like white on rice. New Times
The Debate
Last night, then, Pearce and Lewis met for a debate, sans Cortes, in Mesa before a packed house. The Arizona Republic reports today that there was very little difference between the two conservatives, except on immigration, where Lewis is not quite the raging lunatic Pearce is:
Lewis said immigration laws such as SB 1070 have given the world the idea that Arizona hates minorities. "We need to change the image we have in Mesa and Arizona," he said. "We are seen as a very unfriendly business state. We are seen as something akin to 1964 Alabama. We need to change that."
...
Pearce said it is a "myth" that Arizona has suffered from its illegal-immigration efforts. "Arizona suffers from a great reputation, not a bad reputation," he said. Arizona Republic
Oh, that's rich! If this is what it's like to suffer from a "great reputation," I'm certainly glad we don't have a bad one. Pearce also told the crowd, "States across this entire nation are proud of us and modeling what Arizona had achieved." Hear that? The rest of the nation is "modeling" their programs after Arizona's, because we've been so successful. Just ask those patients awaiting life-saving organ transplants.
And I'm sure, without doubt, that the rest of the nation is modeling their campaign strategies after the one in Mesa's District 18. Another "great reputation" brought to you by Russell Pearce.