Dry Heat: Governor’s race heating up and Fred Duval

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Fred Duval is the only Democratic candidate for governor. Duval was raised in Tucson and worked in Governor Bruce Babbitt’s office. He helped create the state Medicaid system and helped Arizona set record levels of education spending. He served in a senior role in Bill Clinton’s White House and worked in the renewable energy business with Republican oilman T. Bone Pickens. He has vowed if elected that he will not cut one dollar more from the education budget and wants to create a state wide ethics commission. Fred gets to sit back and wait for the Republican nominee to be announced.

Ethics in Arizona government, what a concept! In a state where the chief legal officer, Attorney General Tom Horne allegedly hired his mistress, is being investigated for violating campaign laws, and has been ordered by a judge to payback $400,000 in illegally gotten campaign funds, you would think that voters would be more informed. The hint that Horne was ethically challenged should have been the Securities and Exchange Commission’s revocation of his broker registration and lifetime ban barring him from any association with any broker, dealer, investment adviser or registered investment company. Wall Street is not exactly known for its high standards of ethics so if you were given a lifetime ban, you must be pretty low on the ethics scale.

Then you have Andy Thomas running for Governor, as sleazy as they come. Joe Arpaio, the self proclaimed “America’s toughest Sheriff” has abused his power costing the county millions of dollars, has been investigated for abuse of power, racial profiling, false arrest of media members, campaign finance violations, misspending of jail funds and more. John Huppenthal and Russell Pearce, two more birds of a feather in a flock of corruption! Yes, we could use a state wide ethics commission but we probably need tougher conflict of interest and white collar criminal laws.

The Republican primary election is heating up and getting interesting. Doug Ducey and Christine Jones have been beating up on each other with attack ads, some of them financed with outside money. Ducey received Joe Arpaio’s endorsement which will give him a boost among conservative, Mexican hating voters. Sara Palin (she still relevant?) also endorsed Ducey which will take some Tea Party votes away from Christine Jones.

Governor Jan Brewer gave her endorsement to Scott Smith which has boosted him in the polls and helped with donations to his campaign. Riggs and Thomas are non factors in the race except to pull ultra conservative voters away from Jones and Ducey. If Ken Bennett were to drop out of the race and endorse Smith, it could put Smith over the top but I don’t see that happening. The top three at this time appear to be Ducey, Smith and Jones in that order. Who will stumble towards the finish? Let the attack ads begin and the dark money flow!

Author’s Note:

I have been given the opportunity to express my opinion and viewpoints on politics, national, state, and local issues as well as life in general. I hope to inform you as well as entertain you, make you smile or make you mad. I will use humor, sarcasm and occasionally anger to express my views. My intention is to hold politicians accountable sometimes bringing some heat on them and if my views make you angry or hot, remember that like my humor, it is a dry heat. These opinions are entirely my own and do not reflect the views of Copper Area News Publishers.

John Hernandez (785 Posts)

John Hernandez lives in Oracle. He is retired and enjoys writing and traveling. He is active in the Oracle Historical Society. He covers numerous public events, researches historical features and writes business/artist profiles.


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