The reason? It’s simple. The Republicans’ message won’t stand up to scrutiny. They prefer the hit-and-run sound bite and the 30 second ad to the kind of honest discussion that lets voters make informed decisions.

Sure, plain cowardice plays a big role in this but their evasions also reek with a palpable stench of arrogant entitlement.

Today’s editorial was basically the Republic repeating Arizona GOP talking points about unions and Democrats. I suppose they didn’t want it to be too obvious so they added a lugubrious dose of concern trolling about low wage workers and Dem electoral prospects.

Low-paid workers, many of them immigrants, would lose their jobs in the hotels, resorts and convention facilities most immediately harmed by a boycott. The organizers deemed the job losses worth it in service of the mission. However inconvenient, they were expendable.

Now, the boycott is producing still more unintended victims. Other expendables.

Some of Arizona’s top Democratic political aspirants, all of them opposed to an economic boycott of their state from the very beginning, are being tarred in campaign ads for their association with the unions flogging the boycott, notably the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer is running ads tying her Democratic opponent, Attorney General Terry Goddard, to the unions, which have contributed to Goddard’s campaign.

I had no idea they cared so much!

The state has to provide a response to the brief by October 21st. I expect that Terry Goddard will commit to defending the law vigorously just as he did SB1070. And Terry should insist that the Brewer administration commit to fighting forcefully for employer sanctions despite the fact that Jan Brewer enjoys the endorsement of staunch opponents of the Legal Arizona Workers Act such as the Arizona Chamber of Commerce (which has joined a lawsuit against it).

While we’re at it, Jan should go ahead and proactively renounce the AZ Chamber’s endorsement because they’re against employer sanctions. As should every other pro-SB1070 and (nominally) pro-employer sanctions Republican candidate. It’s pretty outrageous for politicians who claim to be against illegal immigration to accept endorsements from business organizations that want to shield illegal employers from accountability. Don’t you agree?

If reducing fuel consumption would lessen fatalities among soldiers putting themselves at great risk transporting the fuel, then why would anyone in their right mind oppose that?

Excerpt from a Gabrielle Giffords campaign press release sent out today:

August 30, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Anne Hilby
(520) 289-4515
anne@giffordsforcongress.com

AZ-08: Conservatives for Congress plays politics with troops’ lives

Tucson, Ariz. – Every year, American troops risk their lives guarding fuel transport lines and convoys, with nearly 1,000 casualties in 2004 alone. Giffords for Congress today called on special interest group Conservatives for Congress to cancel its new TV ad that plays politics with the lives of U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan.

The ad—which cuts off General David Petraeus before he has finished speaking—makes an issue of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ questioning of General Petraeus before the House Armed Services Committee. Giffords asked General Petraeus about the military policy of reducing fuel consumption. Many U.S. troops have lost their lives or been injured on fuel resupply convoys.

Arizona National Guardsman Mark Cardenas saw firsthand the dangers of our military’s dependence on fuel. Cardenas guarded more than 4,000 miles of convoys during his 15-month deployment to Iraq that began in August 2006. “As someone who spent 15 months guarding convoys – the vast majority of which were fuel convoys – in Iraq, I find this ad un-American. Our dependence on fuel wastes our resources, puts thousands of soldiers in danger everyday and does nothing to advance our strategic missions. There is a better way to do this overall, and that is by freeing ourselves of this leash so our military can go do the job they were sent to accomplish.”

Conservatives for Congress: Not letting girlie hippie stuff that saves the lives of soldiers get in the way of petroleum profits!

Silly women, why did you think you mattered?

Sorry dudes, but we women vote and we don’t care for the likes of Ben Quayle. Quayle’s denials of his involvement with the Dirty Scottsdale website are comical but his misogyny is not. He made comments on Dirty Scottsdale denigrating women as sex objects and is now running on a “family values” platform of wanting to take away our reproductive rights. He couldn’t even give Greta Van Susteren a straight answer to her question of whether Dirty Scottsdale and The Dirty sites degrade women. Quayle is a giant hypocrite who had his fun in the Scottsdale club scene and then, upon deciding he had political aspirations, embraced social conservatism.

Quayle boasts of his “lifelong” social conservatism on his campaign website. IOW, he’s for imposing a harsh and punitive sexual moral code on the little people (women especially) while while he and his rich pals can have a grand old time having “youthful indiscretions” until whenever.

Screw that. And screw anyone who thinks “Brock Landers” doesn’t matter and that Ben Quayle’s disparagement of women and his deplorable hypocrisy don’t matter.

Women matter, guys, and Brock Landers might just get the hell knocked out of him at the ballot box in November.

The reason is that Arizona’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES), which requires us to be getting 15% of our energy from renewable sources by 2025, hangs in the balance. The RES is where we need to be going policy-wise for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are job creation and the fact that traditional fossil fuel costs are projected to go up in the future while renewables like solar and wind are getting cheaper. (Yes, Alan, I know they’re more expensive now. I’m talking about the future.) Plus, there’s that hippie girlie climate stuff to consider, and most people do consider it a looming problem.

Solar development is highly popular with Arizonans and Republicans Brenda Burns and Gary Pierce (who both won handily Tuesday) know it. So they claim to support the RES, while being coy and wishy-washy about it, with Pierce calling for “flexibility” about the percentage and both he and Burns wringing their hands in concern over the surcharge. Moreover, Gary Pierce pretty much straight up denies man-made global warming, claiming the “science is not robust at all”. It’s cyclical, ya know.

It’s imperative to get at least one Democrat elected to protect and expand the RES. I have to be honest and say I’m fairly discouraged by our chances at this point. Burns and Pierce are running on the right mix of pandering to the tea-whackos, blowing kisses to anti-RES interests, and feigning moderation in public. Both are endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce and anti-tax cultists and will probably be the beneficiaries of big independent expenditures by homebuilders who want to stick utility customers with the cost for installing lines to new developments.

I’ll be back later with some thoughts on the other primary races.

Do not be fooled by that adorable countenance. FiFi the French Bulldog puppy, whom we’ve been dog-sitting intermittently the past few weeks, is a hellbeast. FiFi, when I praise you effusively for pooping outside on the rare occasions you deign to do so it’s because that’s where I want you to poop. Not on the Persian rug in the entryway, repeatedly. Also, as much as I know you want to play with the 14 year old female Chihuahua-Poodle mix and the 12 year old female Sheltie who reside in this household, I have to tell you that they don’t reciprocate your desire and, in fact, very much want you to leave them alone. Really, I’ve never seen my Sheltie bare her teeth like that. It’s quite impressive.

So all this doggie concierge service/interference running has taken me away from blogging.

What I want y’all to discuss in my absence: “It’s hard out there for an illegal employer. Those undocumented workers are so wily!!” That was the message from Arizona businesses to AZ Republic reporter Jahna Berry for her front page article in yesterday’s edition. Nope, it’s not the business owners’ fault. At all. Business owners never entice people to come to the U.S. for jobs. Nope. No way.

Say, when do you suppose AZ Chamber of Commerce endorsed candidate for Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is going to be asked hard hitting questions about illegal employers? The 12th of Never?

Anyhoo, I gotta get back to rubbing the belly of the high-maintenance bundle of cuteness that is FiFi the French Bulldog puppy. Because she’s my schmoopie woopie poopie!

On Sunday Square Off the issue of Republican AZ State Treasurer candidate Doug Ducey’s non-payment of property taxes came up and I didn’t get a chance to speak to it because Brahm Resnik was ready for the next topic. Apologies to Andrei Cherny because I wanted to say something but the show goes by fast. Had I been able to, I would have said that Ducey’s tax delinquency is the least of the problems with him. Dude’s got a sordid history of hosing Cold Stone Creamery franchisees over. Stephen Lemons of the New Times covered it a few days ago.

Indeed, many former franchisees who got into Cold Stone during the Ducey years — from 1995 to 2007 — have similar complaints about Cold Stone and what they refer to, over and over again, as a failed business model.

They say this business model encouraged expansion at all costs and hobbled them with high-priced goods they were obligated to purchase from Cold Stone-approved vendors. And they complain about Cold Stone’s erstwhile two-for-one coupons, with the franchisee picking up the tab on the freebie, and the fact that stores were located too close together, thus diluting sales.

This year, in a review of the 10 most-popular franchises, CNNMoney.com noted that Cold Stone franchisees have a 31 percent failure rate.

“The product is sweet, but the financials can be bitter,” notes the article. “In the last 10 years, almost one in three [Small Business Administration]-backed franchisees defaulted on [its] loan. It’s an expensive shop to start, too: The initial franchise fee is $42,000.”

Far more devastating was a June 2008 piece by Richard Gibson in the Wall Street Journal that detailed the plights of ex-franchisees, some of whom had gone bankrupt, losing homes and life savings in the process.

In my Congressional District, CD3, where just about every Republican and his dog is running for the seat, the putative front-runner is a guy by the name of Steve Moak. Steve Moak runs a nonprofit called Not My Kid, where he purports to educate parents on the dangers of drugs and other “destructive behaviors”. He’s under attack by his closest competitor in the race, Ben “Brock Landers” Quayle for not disclosing the relationship between Not My Kid and the home drug testing kits that his for-profit company (surprise!) sells on his tax forms. Again, the New Times broke the story and this time is was writer James King.

In 2004, Moak bought First Check Diagnostics, a California company that makes home drug tests. That same year, he and his wife began a program through notMykid called Project 7th Grade.

Project 7th Grade provided at-home drug tests for parents of children in the program. The idea, as Moak told New Times last week, is to give parents the tools to see if their kids are using drugs, as well as to provide a deterrent for kids who may be tempted to get high.

Moak says if a kid goes to a party and is offered drugs, being able to say “no, my parents drug-test me” would provide the kid with an easy way to decline the pusher’s offer without lookin’ nerdy.

Guess what brand of drug tests Project 7th Grade provided those in the program: the same ones produced by Moak’s for-profit company, First Check Diagnostics.

Simultaneous with the creation of Project 7th Grade, the operating budget for notMYkid shifted from funding education programs to fueling the use of the drug tests produced by Moak’s for-profit company under the guise of the new program.

Moak finally disclosed the relationship in 2007, when he sold First Check Diagnostics for $25 million, because the sale made him more vulnerable to an audit. In this case, unlike with Ducey, I’m going to say the tax thing is a bigger deal than the sleaziness of Moak’s business model. Not telling the IRS about the connection between the Not My Kid nonprofit and First Check Diagnostics is pretty stinking dishonest and on a par with Doug Ducey bamboozling Cold Stone franchise investors.

This gets to the crux of the problem with thinking that “success” in business translates to being a good candidate for public office. If making big profits for your corporation and amassing a large personal fortune is the be all and end all of how we should judge a candidate, and we don’t look at the whole picture, then I guess Bernie Madoff would make an outstanding State Treasurer or Congressman.

Okay. Fine. Leave aside the other issues, such as human error at the Kingman facility and the unholy alliance of the private prison industry, the Brewer administration, and Republican legislators. Look at Arizona’s inmate classification directive. You can find it in a 23 page pdf right on the AZ Dept. of Corrections website. Something stands out right away, doesn’t it? I’ve helpfully circled it for you.

Pop Quiz: Who was the Governor of Arizona on February 25, 2010?

I didn’t even know about the date of the order until Terry Goddard brought it up in his rousing speech at the AZ Democratic Party State Committee meeting yesterday. Brewer owns this – lock, stock, and Inmate Classification order. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

For nocturnal kitties like TC it’s online.