Continuing our totally excellent series of threads on recruitment possibilities for senatorial and gubernatorial contests in 2010, we now turn our attention to Arizona, where things could get very interesting.
Popular incumbent Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano is term-limited, and she seems to be everyone’s first choice to run for the Senate seat of John McCain, which will also be up in 2010. It remains to be seen whether McCain will run for another term (I bet not, but you never know), but Napolitano’s name has already been floated as a potential Attorney General pick in the Obama Administration, which would take the most obvious choice off the table.
Supposing that Napolitano can’t or won’t make a Senate run in 2010, who might the Democrats run in her place? Who would step up for the Republicans if McCain calls it quits? And, for that matter, who should run for the Governor’s office in the Copper State?
i recommend az attorney general terry goddard be recruited for either position in 2010. i believe he ran for governor once before and lost but had a respectable showing. he is a former mayor of phoenix.
the current mayor of phoenix, phil gordon would also make a good candidate.
in addition jim pederson, former chairman of democrat party in az who ran for senate in 2006 might also be recruited.
both races will be tough… but are winnable.
is Gabrielle Giffords. She just dispatched the state senate president by double digits and drove the state GOP chair to have a hissy fit. He called her “unfit to take the oath of office” (something about abuse of House franking privileges), and called her NASA astronaut/navy pilot/Desert Storm veteran husband a “spaceman.”
http://www.azstarnet.com/allhe…
Obviously, they fear her.
Unfortunately, she’s from Tucson, and all the voters in the state live in Maricopa County (Phoenix). I believe though she’s recently opened a press office up there.
Also look for Jim Pederson, the rich former Phoenix mayor who lost to Kyl in 2006 to give it another shot on the Dems side.
As for GOP candidates, the bench is pretty thin. Shadegg has always been assumed to be interested, and we may see a comeback by JD Hayworth. If Napolitano goes to DC, Jan Brewer would run for Governor as the incumbent.
any chance any of the other Democratic Congressmen may take a look at running for Senate? I know Pastor and Grijalva aren’t the youngest but is that out of the question? Especially a Grijalva run might be interesting since the state’s hispanic population continues to grow. Other than that I’m all for Giffords or Napolitano for the Senate seat.
AG Terry Goddard is definitely running for Governor. However, it not going to be a shoe-in since he already lost once the Gov race in 1992 to Fife Symington. Now, it may be a different story in an Arizona friendlier to Dems but it’s going to be a tough race.
Jim Pederson is a candidate who can self-fund but he won’t be able to generate grassroots support. Last time around he lost to Jon Kyle 44% to 53%. He could have won 62% to 35%, which is margin the Napolitano won in 2006 against a relatively viable Republican opponent. Pederson doesn’t seem capable of winning over the independents of Arizona in the way the Janet does. And the independents in AZ make up a huge part of the electorate thanks to the open primary system.
I don’t think Giffords (AZ-08) should run. She’s better off holding her seat but if she does jump in, I’ll support her 100%.
The rest of the congressional delegation is not viable. Pastor (AZ-04) and Grijalva (AZ-07) are way too liberal to survive state wide. If you need proof of this, let me know. Mitchell (AZ-05) is better off in his seat and doesn’t appear to have aspirations for higher office. Kirkpatrick (AZ-01) hasn’t even been sworn in yet.
Besides Janet, I’d say our chances are pretty bleak. State Rep. Phil Lopes and Sen. Ken Cheuvront may have a shot, but in their case the outcome will depend more on how effective the Republican recruitment is in the event that McCain retires (which I think is a given at this point). If McCain stays, I’d bet he beats anyone besides Napolitano.
If Janet Napolitano runs, we can win McCrazy’s seat in 2010! It doesn’t even matter whether or not he runs for another term. She’s probably the one Democrat who’s a sure bet against him.
But if Napolitano doesn’t run, then AG Terry Goddard’s our next best option. He can win statewide, so he may be able to give McCrazy a run for his $$$$.
Janet Napolitano, if not appointed as AG to the Obama administration, would probably have little choice but to run for Senate, since the pressure and opportunity to push for immigration reform at the national level the way the governor did it in Arizona would be too tempting to pass up.
As for Giffords, I actually think she’d be a better fit for 2012 against Jon Kyl, or running in a potential open seat should Kyl decide to call it quits. If Giffords runs for reelection to her House seat and wins in 2010, she just gives herself a great resume of three wins in a row in a Republican leaning district. That’s great to run on as a Senate candidate.
As for Napolitano’s replacement, it would be any credible statewide Democrat like this Goddard guy I keep hearing about, or the Phoenix mayor who’s name I can’t recall at this time.
McCain retiring. He’s got at least a year to decide whether he will retire and live in one of his many houses or go back to DC and be the “pseudo-Maverick” that he’s so famous for. He really has nothing else to do, and I doubt if his ego will be ready for him to retire. I couldn’t see him working as a lobbyist.
It might be good for the Democrats if McCain runs again. He only got 54% of the Presidential vote in Arizona, and he might be as vulnerable to lose his Senate seat as any other GOP member in his caucus.
From what I’ve heard, the Arizona GOP hopes that he does, in fact, retire. There is concern about his health, and the last thing that the GOP wants is for McCain to resign (or die) while serving as a Senator.
Even if he wins another term in 2010, it’s likely he won’t live to see the end of it, and in the meantime, he’ll be the victim of an increasingly fearful and hostile party that blames him for Obama’s victory. I could easily see him getting a CFG-funded primary challenge from the likes of Jeff Flake, Jan Brewer, or some other “small government” crazy who believes McCain has deviated from the Perfect Conservative Template. If McCain gets such a challenge, he probably won’t survive it, given his already-lukewarm support among Arizona conservatives, as well as the national GOP civil war which will blame McCain and “RINOs” for the problems they themselves have caused. In McCain’s case, the GOP will eat their own long before anyone in the liberal movement can touch him.
If McCain is forced to retire or is primaried, I’d love to see Giffords run against the right wing nutjob that replaces him, and become the next Senator from Arizona with Jim Kolbe’s endorsement. Arizona voters need to be jarred out of their complacency, and see the ugly corners of the Arizona GOP for what they are. Nothing will do that better than seeing John McCain lose a nasty primary to some kook.
People here need to stop focusing on their desire to “take out McCain”, who’s already old, unpopular with his base, powerless, and on his way out the door, and instead consider for a minute that Janet Napolitano would be a fantastic Attorney General. She has almost unmatched executive acumen that would be extremely useful in fixing the Justice Department after the mess that Bush/Meiers/Gonzales made of it, and fixing our broken legal system is way more important than winning a single Senate seat in what is still a relatively red state.
Also, if she wanted to run for Senate in 2012, she’d have a good shot at defeating Jon Kyl, the GOP’s chief mastermind in the Senate, and a guy who generally makes McCain look like Gandhi. If the Senate GOP loses Kyl, they lose their brain, and their best future Minority Leader should McConnell ever step aside. Getting rid of him should be a much higher priority than getting rid of McCain, who’s already toast. The only downside to Napolitano becoming AG is that Jan Brewer becomes Governor of Arizona. Ugh. (On the other hand, she’s a legislator first, and seems to be a bit of an egomaniac, so she may not be able to resist leading the circular firing squad against McCain. We’ll see.)
does not get a job in the Obama Administration she will almost certainly run for and win the Senate seat no matter what McCain does. I’m really hoping she’s not picked for a job in Washington beacuse she’d make this a easy pickup. If not it gets a little harder. Giffords would probably be the best choice, but would she want to run so soon? Probably not unless McCain retires. Mitchell would be a decent candidate but is more likely to stay in the House.
After that there is Terry Goddard but he is almost certainly running for governor. Also Jim Peterson and Phil Gordon could be decent candidates but I don’t think they would fare well.
As for the Republicans. If Napolitano gets a DC job Jan Brewer will become Guv and will run for re-election. If not she’ll probably still run for governor. If McCain retires John Shadegg will run and Flake probably will run as well. That would be fun.
and Napolitano is right at the top of the list. The goal of 60+ in 2010 runs right through Arizona. No one could beat Mccain except her, and no one else will beat her. So, Obama appointing her AG could be one of the biggest mistakes he could possibly make in terms of the longterm health of the party and the country (assuming having 60+ would be immensely good for the country, which I do).
If either of them decides not to run, however, we do have some other excellent options.
First of all, until this election, Napolitano and Goddard were the only Dem statewide elected officials. We just added two new faces to that list: Paul Newman and Sandra Kennedy were just elected to the Corporation Commission. The name sounds esoteric, but Corporation Commission is actually an extremely prestigious position in Arizona; the sitting State Treasurer ran for CorpComm in 1998 (narrowly defeating Newman) and a Republican CorpComm member was briefly the leading contender for the AZ-05 congressional seat this cycle before dropping out for personal reasons. Democrats haven’t won a seat on the Commission since 1992, so this is really a huge deal.
Beyond Newman and Kennedy (Newman in particular is a very promising candidate), there are a bunch of excellent candidates in Napolitano’s cabinet. Among the possibilities are Jim Walsh, George Cunningham, and Fred DuVal, all of whom have run competitively either statewide or in Congressional races.