Living in a Battleground State: Arizona at Election Time

 Be very, very happy you do not live in a battleground state.  Since the 2020 election debacle, Arizona conservatives have believed, with no factual evidence, the Presidential election was stolen from them.  Apparently, no other elections were stolen in 2020.  There have been numerous recounts, and finally the Republican controlled legislation actually gave the ballots to a conservative non-governmental group for a 'recount'.  No matter who did the recounts, only a few hundred ballots have ever been found to be illegitimate.  The 2022 election strategy for the Republicans is to select the most extreme right conservatives in the primary process.  There are no John McClain style Republicans still standing in Arizona.  Thus, there's a clear choice in Arizona as to which direction the state will turn.

Since we returned in late August, there's been an increasing crescendo of political advertising on the television.  Usually, you have a couple of ads for whoever is being elected at the national level the last couple of weeks before election day.  Not here.  We have ads not just put out by the candidates, but also a myriad of ads paid for by PACS (political action committees), and ultimately paid for by one or more moneybags hiding behind the PAC trying to influence the election for their own purposes - influence and access.  This is true no matter the political party.  I feel like I'm watching puppets (candidates) being controlled by a few red and blue billionaires.   

Another bafflement is I'm seeing the Democratic candidates talking to the electorate face to face in ads while Republican candidates are hiding behind the PACS which are completely focused on presenting negative unfact checked messages - the definition of the negative political ad.  If that's not bad enough, these ads SCREAM AT YOU.  We have one of the battleground senate seats:  Mark Kelly (incumbent, Democrat) vs. Blake Masters (Republican).  I've yet to see Masters directly speak to the electorate in his ad campaign, while most of Kelly's ads are just him directly talking about immigration, trucking, infrastructure, and taxation.  Masters is counting on the effectiveness of negative advertising and fear.  Don't get me wrong; Kelly is also using PACS to craft negative ads.  Why are we seeing thesenegative ads?  It's because research shows people tend to follow the cliche:  Where there's smoke; there must be fire.  In other words, negative ads work.   

If TV ads aren't bad enough, I just got an unsolicited text to 'stop runaway spending' by the state legislature - no definition of runaway spending, of course.   The only 'runaway spending' I can think of is the funding for a raise for public school teachers which was only instituted by 43% of the state districts.  Arizona is still 41st out of 50 in teacher salaries.  Lots of runaway spending there.  

The most chilling happening in Arizona are the armed people openly carrying weapons and dressed in cammo buzzing around the FEW ballot collection boxes for early voting.  According to the Arizona court case ruling as to the legitimacy of these tactics, it's perfectly legal to attempt to intimidate voters with open firearms being brandished about.  Fortunately, the sheriff/police departments are also sending out officers to babysit the boxes while trying to reassure voters. 

This is just one more measure to attempt to suppress the vote by minorities.  Other suppression techniques:  gerrymandering, overkill on documentation for voting, removing voters from the rolls.  (FYI:  The Arizona election officials removed me from the voter rolls since I mailed my 2020 ballot from NYC!  I  had to re-register to vote, and if I hadn't received the letter from Arizona Elections, I wouldn't even know I'd been dropped from the voter rolls.)  All of these actions are happening at the state legislative level.

The most important politics are LOCAL.  There's a complete ban on abortions in Arizona thanks to the implementation by the state legislature of a 1906 law on the books.  The legislators are being increasingly challenged since these type of implementations are NOT supported by the majority of voters, and another judge has put an injunction in place that the 1906 law can not go into effect until 2023 - just a few months away.   Battleground elections in Arizona are not confined to the national elections, and the state elections. They are happening all the way down to the school board election level where the MAGA candidates don't want anything about racism, slavery, some current scientific theories, or sex education taught in public schools.  They are determined to change the textbooks, and threaten teachers with jail time if they don't toe the line.  The state races for Governor, and Secretary of State are also being hotly contested with extreme candidates being presented by the Arizona Republican party.  [The Republican Governor candidate still believes the 2020 election was stolen, has called for secession from the United States as well as thinking cameras in classrooms are a good idea.  The Republican Secretary of State candidate is a former(?) member of the Oath Keepers, never opens his mouth, and likes to be photographed in cowboy hats.]

The real battleground in Arizona is being repeated all over the country.  It's rural voters vs urban voters.  Thanks to gerrymandering, the rural vote is being unfairly magnified everywhere a Republican legislature has drawn lines for districts such as Arizona.  There are fewer polling places and ballot boxes for early voting in traditionally minority neighborhoods in Phoenix.  Then, there is the indigenous reservation votes which are mostly unique to Arizona.  This by-election feels like the 'bad old days' of the smoke filled room selecting candidates.  Now, we just have green candidates - ones who are bought and paid for by dollar bills either overtly or covertly.  Welcome back to the Gilded Age!