day3: arizona

[CARLHAYDEN]

Everyone but Beef is pretty close to correct.

Several things most people don't know.

First, Arizona has one of the highest percentage of population that is retired military in the nation (so, disparage the military here and you're politically dead).

Second, Arizona has one of the highest percentage of National Rifle Association membership in the nation (I personally know and have voted for several of the board members).  I helped defeat an incumbent Democrat State Senator in 1974 who came out against the right to keep and bear arms (he was the only incumbent Democrat state legislator to lose reelection). 

Third, the refugees from California (fleeing liberal tyranny there) are NOT going to move Arizona to the left (they have seen what happened to California).

Fourth, our cities are different from eastern cities.  The largest city with partisan elections (Tucson) has a Republican mayor (and a couple of Republican councilmembers).  The Democrats they defeated were stupid enough to attack the right to keep and bear arms.

Fifth, while hispanics here, like in Texas to tend to vote Democrat more than Republican, they are by and large pretty conservative.  Also, one of the Repubican members of the Tucson city council is a hispanic.

Sixth, the only group which has decisively moved left in the past thirty years are the Navajos.  They are hated and despised by the other 'nations' (most people erroneously call them 'tribes') in Arizona.

Seventh, Democrats typically win (statewide) when the Republicans have an internal fight AND the Democrat is moderate to conservative.
 

[CARLHAYDEN]

One factor which many political observers not familiar with Arizona miss is that as the national Democrat party has lurched to the left, moderate and conservative Democrats have been voting Republican.

An excellent example is Greenlee county, Arizona (negligible population growth). 

Year          Republican % of Presidential Vote

2000                    54.7%

1980                    40.6

1960                    29.9

[CARLHAYDEN]

Dole was so unpopular in Arizona that the only reason he didn't finish third in the state primary was that games were played with polling locations to reduce the Buchanan vote.

Forbes ran some really good commercials showing Dole for what he was, the candidate of tax increases.

Dole was so bad that he was the only Republican nominee for President since 1948 to not carry the state.