Can Howard Shanker Still Beat Back The Insider Hack In Arizona?

More of the same for AZ-01?

A week from Tuesday is the under the radar primary to pick the Democratic nominee-- and overwhelming November favorite-- to replace indicted Republicrook Rick Renzi, who has already resigned as McCain For President Co-chair and is retiring from Congress, reportedly as part of a plea bargain to keep his prison time down to a minimum. The reason this likely red to blue Arizona seat is under the radar is because Democratic Party insiders saw it as a way to insert a clueless rubber stamp of their own. Their pick is an utterly worthless party hack who has less comprehension of the important issues facing Americans than an average political science major at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The DCCC's Stalinist single-mindedness towards getting the nomination for the hapless Ann Kirkpatrick-- and the tactics they're using to accomplish that-- is reminiscent of 2006 races where the DCCC trued crushing progressive, grassroots and anti-war candidates in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, New Hampshire... and wherever they could. Their most effective trick is to convince lazy and gullible local media "sources"-- this is a Rahm Emanuel specialty-- that their candidate is "inevitable." If that were true we would be looking at hot re-election campaigns for Congressman Steve Filson (CA-11), Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth (IL-06) and Congresswoman Judy Aydelott (NY-19), among other shills Rahm Emanuel wasted millions of dollars on to beat out anti-war/anti-corporate Democrats. This year they're doing it again in races covering Staten Island, (with conservative Republican-lite Michael McMahon), Alaska (with corrupt hack Ethan Berkowitz), and a Florida district covered much of suburban Orlando plus a chunk of Atlantic coast south of Daytona Beach (with status quo robot Suzanne Kosmas)... and in AZ-01.

The DCCC and the rest of the unscrupulous and thoroughly corrupt Inside the Beltway Establishment is raising money for Kirkpatrick, although the district's activists and grassroots Democrats prefer Howard Shanker. If money alone can win this race, Kirkpatrick will be another awful Democrat in Washington next year, one that makes people wonder why there are even two parties. Thursday one of her supporters' blogs explained why it may not be just a matter of money. Although he makes some mistakes-- like claiming the Sierra Club endorsed Kirkpatrick (they've resisted the Insider demands to buckle under) and that she speaks Apache (she doesn't; and when I saw her at an event a few weeks ago I was wondering why she could barely speak English)-- for the most part, his analysis isn't off-base. Among other things, this Kirkpatrick partisan says:

A few weeks ago I thought that Kirkpatrick had it in the bag, but recently Flagstaff Attorney Howard Shanker has been running very strongly. Shanker represents the Navajos in an ongoing lawsuit to prevent Arizona Snow Bowl from using treated wastewater to make artificial snow on the San Francisco Peaks (considered sacred by the Navajo--- think of the Mapplethorpe exhibit and the crucifix in urine and you get the idea of how they feel about it.) Right now, after several rounds in court that have gone both ways, the ski resort has won the latest round but it is likely to be appealed, maybe even up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Shanker has a lot of enthusiastic volunteers and seems to have boundless energy. I don't think I've gone to a major event in the past two years where I haven't seen either Howard Shanker (often personally) or someone representing him. Working against Shanker are the huge geographical size of the district and the fact that he has been far less successful at fundraising than Kirkpatrick. Shanker is the most liberal of the leading candidates and he has a lot of personal charisma.

As of June 30th Kirkpatrick had raised $988,611 (to Shanker's $171,149). Like the hopeless reactionary Nikki Tinker, Emily's List has endorsed Kirkpatrick and put over $100,000 into her race. Other big donors are Rahm Emanuel's Our Common Values cesspool of corruption, Steny Hoyer's AmeriPAC, and Unite Here, a low-info labor PAC that does whatever NAFTA-mastermind Emanuel tells them to do. It isn't too late to help Howard Shanker win this thing: here's how.