Last night as I was washing dishes- and my wife and daughter were enjoying Dora the Explorer- my cell rang. I was hoping it wasn't someone too chatty, because I had some crab fishing to watch as soon as Dora was done going to the chocolate tree for her abuela. I digress.
On the other end of the line was a nice lady, from some research firm that I can't recall, who wanted to "survey the young voters" about various issues. I don't get many surveys, so I figured "Why not?"
After a good half hour on the phone, I think I actually got more out of the survey questions than they got out of me.
What did I get? That Don Bivens is seriously contemplating a run for the Arizona Senate seat being vacated by Jon Kyl against US Rep Jeff Flake.
The initial news of Don's interest in a run came from last week's Elections Morning digest.
If he weren't serious, why would he drop some bucks on polling - and not just any polling, I'm talking about some detail here. I had questions on messaging, background, issue importance. This wasn't just a simple name recognition poll (which I did encounter by PHX-MAYOR candidate Greg Stanton's poll).
So if Don's going to seriously run, I think this community needs to find out more about him. We sure as hell don't want a repeat of Rodney Glassman's disaster from last year.
A quick background on Don:
Born in Ann Arbor, MI in 1952, Don currently is a lawyer with the group Snell & Willmer.
Bivens held the AZ Democratic party state chairmanship two times: From 2007-2009, then from 2009-2011. He was ousted briefly by Paul Eckerstrom- who ended up resigning after a week due to travel and time restraints- but ended up back in the position afterwards. He's never held elected office, apart from stints as a delegate to the American Bar Association, and chairman of some ABA committees.
In the surveys, he was played as a "moderate" with a middle-class background, and pro-choice. But since he has never held elected office, there's no record of where he stands when the rubber meets the road.
Controversy at the AZ Democratic Party
As far back as 2008, some concerned Arizona Democrats were out for Bivens' blood:
It's gotta be cold comfort for Arizona Democratic Party Chairman "Dandy" Don Bivens and Executive Director Maria Weeg to be getting love from the ideological Cro-Magnons over at the Sonoran Alliance blog. After all, Bivens, at least, is up for re-election, as are all other state party office holders come this January 24, at the Dems' reorganization meeting at the Wyndham Hotel in Downtown Phoenix. (...)The reason? Check out this Sonoran Alliance blog post, which is spot on, for all the wrong reasons.
"Republicans are endorsing the Arizona state Democrat Party's leadership for another term. Under the leadership of chairman Don Bivens and Executive Director Maria Weeg, local Democrat candidates throughout Arizona did terribly, losing seats in the legislature to conservative Republicans and getting beat badly in races for Maricopa County Sheriff and County Attorney. Keep it up Bivens & Weeg, you fooled the local newspapers (which no one reads anymore anyways, why bother when you have sites like this and this) that had predicted the Democrats would pick up seats in the legislature, not lose them. Remember the Democrats bragging over the past couple of years about how much money they had raised, and how they had registered more voters than Republicans? I couldn't keep track of all the articles in the mainstream media gloating about this, there were so many. When the real results came in, all their bragging was was just empty bragging."
(
Source)
Sure enough, he was ousted that January, but the 2008 results weren't as terrible as the source says. I calculate out about 1 seat each was lost in the House and Senate. However, we did pick up AZ-01 (for AZ to have 5D-3R) with Obama's coattails- which does indicate that the state legislature underperformed, as well as some other state offices.
After Don Bivens took over from Eckstrom, he again presided over another election... The 2010 disaster.
In the general election on November 2, 2010, the Republican Party gained 3 seats in the Arizona Senate and 5 seats in the House. The Republicans' edge over the Democrats in the popular vote was 57.7% to 39.8% in the Senate and 61.7% to 35.5% in the House.
The party breakdown in the Arizona Legislature is currently as follows:
Senate: 21 Republicans, 9 Democrats
House of Representatives: 40 Republicans, 20 Democrats
(
Wiki)
In the executive branch, there is a grand total of TWO Democrats- members of the regulatory body the Arizona Corporation Commission.
Was 2010 the result of a "wave", or just poor planning and outreach? Based on my experiences in that election, I say both. The state party showed up 5 months before November, and rushed to get in the races. Too little, too late.
Is Don our guy?
Well, I don't know. Given his record as state chair, I don't know if this guy can run the type of campaign we'd need to pick up this seat. He's never been a candidate before, so how will he connect with voters? Sometimes that makes all the difference. He may have a good message, but if he can't deliver on the connection and get voters, it means absolutely nothing.
So readers, What do YOU think?