If, while driving through Ahwatukee lately, you've been wondering why you've been hearing circus music- fear not. You're not going crazy. That sound just means that the District 20 Republicans are having yet another election.
Yes, the parade of clowns that brought you Pantsless Mark Spinks and Tom "Tommy 5 Wives" Morrissey is far from over. It seems they are just getting started.
To catch you up to speed- here's what's happened so far:
In December, a slate of candidates led by Tommy 5 and Marky Mark ran for positions within district leadership. Tommy and Mark lost, but some of "their people" were elected to the board. During the election, Tommy's slate said that if their whole slate wasn't elected, they weren't going to work well with the others.
True to their promise, Tommy and Mark then led the charge to try to invalidate the election results, by any means necessary. This led to little ol' Ahwatukee making national headlines for removing the first (and only) black district chairman in Arizona. Oh, and several of the board members resigned in protest.
Then, by a bizarre mix of fate and Tea Party ignorance, Tommy was elected to State Chairman, and now Mark works for him, taking the hard earned money of ignorant Republicans who don't know that their cash is going to a convicted sex criminal.
Since District 20 was without a chairman, they needed to hold elections for a new one. In a poorly attended meeting, they elected Jeni White, a political novice and Mark Spinks groupie.
Now this Wednesday, the district will, several months later, hold elections to replace the rest of the board members who resigned in January. One of the positions that is open is 1st vice chair.
One of the candidates for 1st vice chair is Bill Baxter, currently the district's 4th vice chair.
So, why is Bill Baxter running for 1st vice chair when he's already the 4th vice chair? Keep in mind, that if he is elected, that would require the district to hold yet another election to replace him, costing the district time and money.
The answer, of course, is Rob Haney.
If a district chairman is absent from a County EGC meeting, the district's 1st vice chair can vote in their place.
Jeni White is currently a reliable rubber stamp for Haney's agenda, and he wants to make sure that the 1st vice chair would be too. Bill Baxter fits that description.
So once again District 20 PCs are being used as pawns by Rob Haney. The real question is whether or not they care.
Update (3:20 PM): Some people have emailed to say that I have Bill Baxter all wrong. I guess there is a second option- he could just be an egotistical idiot. He could really think that there's a material difference between a district 4th vice chair and a district 1st vice chair. He could really believe that people will be more impressed with the title of 1st vice chair. He could really believe that there are things that he can do as 1st vice chair that he can't do as 4th vice chair. Of course if he believed that, he'd be wrong.
So there you go- there are two reasons why this guy would force his district to hold their 4th election in 6 months so he can get a shiny new title that he will do nothing with- he's a Rob Haney puppet, or he's an egomaniacal idiot.
Or both.
5 comments:
Some inaccuracies..
1. Anthony Miller was not "removed". He resigned. Big difference.
2. Jeni White, while appearing solidly in the Morrissey camp, is her own person and appears to be all over the place trying to learn as much as possible.
The unification of LD20, being in the middle of a swing area, is vitally important to ensuring Republican victory in 2012. Although I do not agree with White's support of Morrissey, I find her an enthusiastic Chair for her district and I've yet to hear anyone in any other district say anything bad about her - which is rare. I think she has an excellent chance to unify LD20 if people put the Republican agenda above their own personal rivalries.
Steve- I'm actually glad you brought this up, because it creates a great opportunity to compare and contrast two men.
Anthony Miller did actually resign. That's true.
But he only did so after Tom Morrissey, Mark Spinks, Bill Baxter, and Jeni White made it perfectly clear that while he remained in office their focus would be on removing him, not moving forward. I've seen the emails. It wasn't pretty.
So Anthony did the right thing, manned up, and quit.
Tom Morrissey is in a similar position. The only people who think he's the right man for the job are the sycophants and leeches that he surrounds himself with.
There are some of us (including everyone here) that will never stop focusing on Tom, his incompetence/corruption, and his relationships with criminals.
I should also mention that several prominent Democrats have made it perfectly clear that they have the dirt on Tom- they are just waiting for a more politically advantageous time to release it.
So Tom could do the right thing and resign, but he's not half the man Anthony Miller is, so he won't.
As for Ms. White- I have no doubt that you have a good impression of her after seeing her in public.
However, in private you'd be surprised just how hateful and vindictive she can be. She's far from a healer.
Add that to her support for Morrissey and her repeated public defense of Spinks the criminal, and I'm quite a bit less optimistic about her and her ability to lead.
Let me know when she's on the record doing anything but rubber-stamping Haney's agenda or when she's made any real measurable attempt to bring her district together and maybe I'll reassess.
Until then she's just another cog in the wheel of Haney/Morrissey/Spinks/Mecum incompetence and corruption.
It doesn't make sense why they would have to have multiple elections. Why doesn't Bill resign and then have elections for all of the open positions? During that election he could run for 1st Vice Chair? Seems odd.
@Anonymous- you're starting from the faulty assumption that Bill is doing what's best for the party, rather than himself personally.
Once you rid yourself of that notion then it all starts making sense.
If Bill cared about what was best for the party or the district, he'd just stay put as 4th vice chair and do his best in that job.
Since doing right by the district is not his goal, his actions make much more sense.
Plus- Bill has an opponent in this race. So if he resigned, there's no guarantee he'd be elected.
In Arizona, there's a resign to run rule, but the rules don't apply to people like Bill. They only apply to the plebes.
So this way, Bill gets to keep his current position if he loses, but if he wins, then the district gets to have yet another election.
See how nicely that works out for Bill?
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