Like most places, we took it in the shorts tonight in the Grand Canyon state. The Governor who sees headless bodies littering the desert easily dispatched her talented opponent, while Dan Quayle's porn-site loving son, Ben, a guy who has no experience at anything other than being a "Quayle," walked away with John Shadegg's Congressional seat. And of course the usual suspects - McCain, Franks, Flake - won their races before 1% of the vote was tallied.
A good man, Congressman Harry Mitchell - who has a friggin' statue of himself in Tempe, he's that popular - lost in CD-5 to a swindler, I think because Harry got caught up in negative, defensive posturing, rather than selling himself and the good work he's done. He ran away from his own strengths. I've known Harry a long time; he's a former history teacher, much-loved mayor of Tempe, and all-around swell guy, but his campaign ads drove me crazy. Rather than champion the great work he's done for Arizonans over decades – including refuting the lies about Obamacare and the stimulus – his commercials did nothing but trash his opponent's business ethics.
One bright spot for progressives in Arizona and nationwide, however, is that Congressman Raul Grijalva appears to have survived the tea party onslaught, which attacked him relentlessly primarily for his vocal opposition to SB 1070. In an election when Jan Brewer won the Governor's seat for one reason and one reason only – because she signed the papers please law – Grijalva's victory speaks volumes about his willingness to be forceful rather than timid, in the face of the bigotry and tons of money that poured into this state to take down a genuine progressive. But with 98 percent of the vote in, Raul leads by more than 4,000 votes in CD-7.
That says something about the sanity and GOTV passion of our friends in Pima County in general and Tucson specifically, where Grijalva won 56-38. With the exception of a handful of votes from up north, all of the votes are in and there is no way McClung can close the gap. Congressman Grijalva has been a frequent diarist here, and I'm sure he appreciates the support you've shown him.
BTW, next door in CD-8, it appears Democrat Gabrielle Giffords will squeak out a win as well, against one of the looniest of the loonies, Jesse Kelly, the yahoo who said Dems were busing Mexicans across the border to vote. I'm sure he'll blame his loss on illegal voters and call for a recount. Gabby is winning by 2,000 votes with only a few votes in Pima County still to come in, where she currently holds a 50-46 edge.
So thank you southern Arizona! Once again, the people closest to the border are the ones who see through the fear-mongering that paralyzes MariKafka County.