I've probably written a few dozen diaries where Arizona Senator Russell Pearce makes an appearance, but none of them gave me, or most citizens of the Grand Canyon State, as much joy as this story. The results of a new poll, commissioned by Arizona Capitol Times and ABC15, were just released:
Mesa Republican Jerry Lewis, who is seeking to unseat Pearce in the Nov. 8 recall election, is holding his own among fellow GOP voters, despite being heavily outspent by Pearce and his national fundraising prowess. Lewis holds a 46-43 percent lead over Pearce in the historic recall contest, but the edge is within the poll’s margin of error. Arizona Capitol Times
Sure, it's only a poll and it's very close, but you've got to hand it to Citizens for a Better Arizona (CBA), the group that began collecting signatures in January to force a recall. Check the video on CBA's homepage and you'll see who they are: regular Arizonans, your neighbors. Not the unpatriotic anarchists and extremists Pearce blabbered about. At the start many people doubted CBA could collect enough names in the über-conservative Mesa district. Then, when they submitted way more signatures than were necessary, few pundits believed that the powerful Pearce would be dethroned. He was President of the Senate, after all, and he'd handily won six straight elections in LD18.
The Senator didn't help his chances during the campaign. He wanted the debate to be about immigration, the "rule of law," and other red-meat topics. It wasn't, it was about him and his thuggish tactics. To wit:
How To Fuck Up An Election 101: This course examines famous political campaign disasters, from Michael Dukakis's goofy tank ad to Gary Hart's wandering penis. This week we review a few dickheaded tactics employed by the President of the Arizona Senate, Russell Pearce, during his 2011 recall campaign.
Pearce's toadies, including the Arizona GOP, spread lies about the recall and its leaders, smearing innocent people in the process. His goons created a Twitter account under the name of challenger Jerry Lewis, sending Tweets that made Lewis sound like a gay, open-border activist. The Senator challenged the recall in the courts, coming off as arrogant and desperate. And not very smart either: the appeal was insultingly dumb, which the judges all but said. He called his opponents "outside extremists" at the same time he illegally used Tom Tancredo's "Team America" to raise cash nationally. Last week, Pearce's email blast complained that "liberal outside special-interest groups" are behind the recall.
Bullshit. The two candidates' campaign finance reports, which were filed last week, make very clear which candidate was sucking the balls of "outside special-interest groups." Pearce sought bucks from nativist organizations like VDARE, and many of his donations came from out of state, with 9 of 10 from out of his district. He accepted heaps of PAC and corporate money. Lewis did not, and more than 70 percent of his individual contributions came from Mesa. All told, Pearce outdrew Lewis 5:1, which included donations from most of Arizona's high-octane lobbyists, not to mention the state's best known Neo-Nazis. His largest donation was $21,000 from the private education industry (a reward, no doubt, for Pearce's ongoing attack on public schools). The Arizona Republic concluded:
Donations for Pearce have come from across Arizona and all over the nation, but only about 1 in 10 donors lives in Mesa. The majority of Lewis' donors call this city home.
So, the poll's results today were not unexpected, given Lewis's support locally, and the fact that Pearce's big rally last week in the Chicago Cubs' 12,500-seat spring training stadium drew fewer than 300 die-hard wingers, and most of them were not LD18 residents. Pearce's lifetime membership in the Wingnut Hall of Fame earned him national coverage and cash, but they can't vote. Only Mesans can, and they've obviously grown weary of the fear-mongering and dirty politics.
By far the Gold Medal for the most WTF campaign strategy goes to the douchebags who recruited Olivia Cortes to enter the race. The Senator's supporters set up and funded a sham candidate whose Hispanic name, the flaccid fools believed, would siphon anti-Pearce votes from Jerry Lewis. When the controversy threatened to ensnare Pearce's family in court, Cortes withdrew, but the shadow of thuggery that the diversionary scam cast followed the Senator for weeks.
That was the campaign season: Senator Pearce's lies, smears, and deceptions.
It's ending just fine, real hunky dory. Jerry Lewis is no flaming liberal by any means; his views on most issues mirror Pearce's. But he's not a mean-spirited dick. And he won't be President of the Senate -- appointing committee chairs, scheduling bills, setting his agenda of hate, whispering repugnant schemes in the Governor's ear, and serving as the worst advertisement possible for the state's tourism office.
Why is Pearce in trouble? A trip down memory lane
Russell Pearce is notorious for authoring SB 1070, the "papers please" law, as well as a stack of other bigot-laced bills, like the ethnic studies ban. Pearce sponsored a shitload of more extreme immigration bills last March, but even the 2/3-majority GOP Senate couldn't hold their nose and swallow that bile, and all were rejected. He's also the man who:
• befriended white supremacists and circulated their racist emails;
• slapped his wife around, and then voted against stiffer penalties for domestic abuse;
• was canned as director of the Motor Vehicle Division for forgery;
• defended Senator Scott Bundgaard after he dragged his girlfriend out of the car on the median of a Phoenix freeway, and hit her;
• took $40,000 in freebies from the Fiesta Bowl, part of an illegal scheme that led to the downfall of the Fiesta's senior staff, and threatened the bowl's BCS standing;
• raised a fine, upstanding Ozzie & Harriet family, with his one Nazi Eagle-tatooed son now sitting in jail after more than 30 run-ins with the law (another son was also arrested for making fake IDs while working a government job);
• drove a dagger into the 2010 tourism economy with SB 1070;
• introduced a lying letter from a substitute teacher in order to argue, during a 2011 Senate immigration debate, that Hispanic students are unruly, stupid, and want to take over America;
• created a blacklist to keep human rights protestors out of the legislative chambers, and later banned the public from the Senate's press conferences;
• collaborated with ALEC and the private prison industry to write SB 1070, thereby assuring the prisons more customers;
• based his politics, a theocracy really, on the moon-howlin' teachings of Cleon Skousen, a John Bircher who believed only white Mormon men can save the Republic.
Pearce was also Chair of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees during the decade Arizona's economy ker-plopped into the shitter. When he badmouths the runaway spending of previous administrations, it sure must taste funny. Last session was Pearce's first as President of the Senate, where he and his like-minded goobers:
• gutted K-12, community colleges, and universities nearly a half-billion dollars, about the same amount the legislature gave to corporations in tax breaks;
• booted tens of thousands of people from the state's once-admired healthcare program, including thousands of children from Kids Care and 100 patients on the life-saving organ transplant list;
• passed stricter abortion regulations, causing Planned Parenthood to close most of its rural clinics;
• "balanced the budget" (he will tell you) by shifting many costs to counties and cities;
• impeached the one Independent member of the redistricting commission for being, well, too independent for the GOP;
• made Arizona look like such a backward, racist, homophobic place that more than 70 local CEO's sent Pearce a letter, asking him to quit acting like such a dirtbag;
• introduced a lot of "jobs" legislation, including a Tea Party license plate, an Official State Weapon (Colt 45), a Birther Bill, more abortion restrictions, and additional anti-GLBT nonsense. Because he's focused like a laser on jobs.
Russell Pearce was Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputy for more than 20 years. They were hatched from the same pod, one that produces frustrated tough-talking chickenhawks. Arpaio sat behind a desk in France during the Korean War, and the Vietnam-era Pearce served his entire National Guard stint in Arizona. "Damn, we didn't get to beat on North Koreans and the Viet Cong, but there's always defenseless prisoners and poor Mexicans!"
Let's hope that on November 8 Arizonans can say, "One down, one to go."