Dem Candidates Protest Rising Gas Prices

The rising price of energy and oil has been receiving a lot of news lately. Congress seems deadlocked on a solution, it's become exceedingly obvious that the Bush Administration just doesn't give a shit. Incompetance on the part of the Republican leadership in Congress and indifference on the part of Bush should be enough to want people to kick them out. However, that's not the case, people need more than anger to inspire them to vote. America desperately needs leadership.

Yesterday, Harry Mitchell, Jim Pederson, and State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema protested rising gas prices at an Exxon station in Phoenix. The protest was suggested in a memo sent out by the DCCC, which was obtained by the Chicago Tribune:

Demonstrate your dedication to fighting for middleclass families by clearly explaining how you will work to keep down the price of gas if elected to Congress.

Hold an event at a gas station or other logical location where you call for a real commitment to bringing down gas prices and pledge that, as a member of Congress, you will fight for families in your district, not the oil and gas executives for which this Republican Congress has fought so hard.

In their statements, both Pederson and Mitchell called for anti-price gouging legislation, ending tax breaks for oil companies, and a shift towards alternative fuels like ethanol.

Also, Geo found an old interview with Mitchell from 1992. A nice read if you're interested in downtown Tempe's history and revitalization.

Thursday Open Thread

Finals start next week so my workload has been a bit busier lately. I'll try to update more often as news comes in. Once summer comes around, I'll have much more time I can devote to blogging.

• Tedski has reported that Todd Sommers, a Congressional staffer for J.D. Hayworth, was at Harry Mitchell's campaign kickoff. I share Wactivist's feelings about being scooped, we were both at the event. While there a Young Democrat organization told me that Hayworth had sent a minion out to the event, but good job to Tedski for connecting the dots. From Abramoff, to immigration, to this, Hayworth is proving he is a man that just doesn't deserve to represent us.

• ASU student and State Press reporter Ricket Beitman had a great piece about Harry Mitchell in last week's campus newspaper. Students should be excited about this race. Mitchell is dedicated to making higher education more affordable and more accessible for Arizona students and has been a great advocate of ASU and the public school system.

• What's with the crazy ideas that Hayworth should run for President?

Open thread, have at it.

Mitchell Raises $200,000+ In First Two Weeks

Harry Mitchell raised an impressive $213,000 in the first two weeks of his campaign. As of the March 31st filing deadline, Mitchell reported having $204,000 cash on hand. These numbers are great. The last report put Hayworth with over $800,000 cash on hand. Mitchell generated enough excitement in two weeks to raise a quarter of what Hayworth has had for months . No doubt about it, Harry Mitchell is competitive and I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up out-raising Hayworth in the next quarter.

Also, the state Democratic Party has more dirt on Hayworth. Back in 1994, when Hayworth joined Gingrich and the others in the Contract with America movement, he was a ardent supporter of term-limits on members of Congress. Hayworth supported the 12-year limit on representatives. That was then, this is now, twelve years later and Hayworth is seeking his seventh term.

Yet again, Hayworth shows he is a man of broken promises and empty principles.

Monday Open Thread

Hello, everyone, sorry about the lack of pictures from last Wed.'s event. The site I use to host the pictures is messed up, but I'm working on it.

I have one blip. AZ Congress Watch blogged on Robert Robb's column concerning Harry Mitchell's campaign and his positions on the issues (or according to Robert the lack thereof). Harry officially kicked his campaign off less than one week ago. We are still more than six months from election day. This criticism isn't really fair considering Harry's entrance into the race all happened rather quickly.

On the other hand, what does J.D. Hayworth have to offer? He went on national television to tell the American people and the citizens of his district that their only problem and issue was illegal immigration. What kind of platform is that? Americans are more concerned about access to reliable and affordable healthcare, the increasing costs of college tuition and general decline in America's education standards, the skyrocketing costs of energy and ensuing inflation, and an effective strategy in Iraq (which by now most Americans relate to a withdrawal plan).

What's more enraging? People coming here to work and take care of their families, or paying nearly $3 a gallon for gasoline or paying hundreds of dollars for health plans that barely cover the necessities or our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters dying in Iraq while our President insists we stay the course.

What's enraging is J.D. Hayworth. He is a rubber-stamp Republican, who believes in the current course of action in Iraq. A course of action that is killing our troops, a course of action where the Iraqi "government" remains in a complete stay of disarry, a course of action that is losing us the war. He has voted to cut $12 billion in education funding from the budget when ASU students are looking at an 8.5% tuition rate increase and while No Child Left Behind continues to be an oxymoron.

Harry Mitchell spoke about values at his announcement. He is a man of values; along with being a dedicated family man and teacher, he is a principled man who believes in public service. What values does Hayworth possess? He is one of the largest receipients of dirty Abramoff money. He has dishonestly pushed the GOP rhetoric that Democrats ruined the immigration debate. He cares more about keeping brown people out of this country than the most important concerns of his constituents.

Come November, District Five will see through Hayworth's facade of fear and lies. They will remember the values Hayworth thinks are important (cronyism, corporate greed, supreme loyalty to party and president, xenophobism) and they will remember the values Mitchell thinks are important (family, community, honesty, liberty). Come November, the choice will be obvious.

This is an open thread, go!

"This is a campaign for change"

Today, in front of Tempe's City Hall named for him, Harry Mitchell formally announced his candidacy for Congress. In his statements, Harry said, "This is a campaign for change, and a campaign to restore honesty, integrity and civility to Washington." Harry had a lot of fighting words for J.D. Hayworth, slamming the incumbent with a reference to Jack Abramoff, even poking fun at J.D.'s recent book Whatever It Takes.

A couple of quotes from his speech (paraphrased from what I remember):

"The people of this district deserve better, they deserve a representative that will respond to them, not lobbyists like Jack Abramoff."

"Washington policitians seem to care more about becoming celebritries and talking heads than statesmen."

The event was really upbeat. Almost everyone there (a sizable crowd for a warm, sunny Arizona day) was wearing Harry Mitchell for Congress shirts or waving Harry for Congress signs (my Young Democrat friends got me a shirt and sign so I can join in on the excitement). Me and other Young Democrats at ASU are really excited about this race and it showed today.

Harry was introduced this morning by his daughter and son, Mark Mitchell, Tempe City Councilman. Kyrene District School Board Member Sue Knudson and Arizona Board of Regents member Ed Hermes also spoke. It was good to see Ed again, we are both graduates from Seton Catholic High and St. Mary's Elementary School. (I sort of take pride in my elementary school St. Mary's because we have both seats for students on the ABOR. Ed is two years older than me and my fellow classmate Mary Venezia was just appointed by the Governor for the non-voting position.)

It was a real great event with a lot of familiar faces like Attorney General Terry Goddard, Senator Ed Ableser, School Superintendent candidate Slade Mead, numerous Tempe City Council members, former City Council candidate Corey Woods, and Harry's family.

Harry also has his website up and running.

Update: I'll have pictures up tomorrow. I need to download them onto my friend's computer but won't be able to until tomorrow night.

Saturday Open Thread

It's the weekend, I hope you're relaxing a little bit.

• Hayworth hates to tell people "I told you so" but says it anways. Maybe he'll say it again on Meet the Press tomorrow.
  

• Harry Mitchell will announce his candidacy for Congress on Wednesday. If you want to go, it's at the Harry Mitchell Government Center (no wonder this guy is polling better than Hayworth; what's named after Hayworth in District 5?) in downtown Tempe at 11:00 A.M. I'll probably skip class to go and I'll see if I can borrow a friend's camera to get pictures.

This is an open thread, what other news has interested you lately?

Yes, I'm Still Here

Hello everyone. Sorry the blog hasn't been updated in a while. I've been really busy with homework lately and I was out of town for a little bit last week. There has been a ton of news since my last update, so let's get to it!

Yesterday, the Arizona Republic reported that Larry King has called it quits.

"After over 18 months on the campaign trail, it's become clear to me that timing is everything," King said. "And I have concluded that now is not the time for me to be a candidate."

It must have been a really hard, frustrating decision to make. Send your thanks and support to Larry here.

King's decision now clears the field for Harry Mitchell, who according to some rumors has accumulated a "ton" of money before the March 31 filing deadline. Both King and Mitchell will be on the primary ballot so it will be interesting to see how many die-hard Larry King supporters there are out there. Mitchell has been keeping a relatively low profile and has yet to finish his campaign website. Harry resigned his state senate seat to work on the campaign full-time. Appointed in his place, was ASU graduate student and health counselor Ed Ableser. Ableser will carry out the rest of the term and then run for the District 17 house seat. Representative Meg Burton Cahill is set to run for the Senate seat in November.

Meanwhile, Hayworth has been paraphrasing from his immigration book in Washington. The good news is that his and the other GOP "enforcement-only" legislation is pretty much dead. The massive nationwide protests last month must have resonated with the politicians in Washington. Of course, there still is the large bloc of Republicans that want to pass their racist, xenophobic, ineffective bill, but the GOP is in shambles on the hill. The bad news is that almost any other idea is currently shelved.

The Arizona Democratic Party has called for Hayworth to return all Abramoff connected money. In fact, that is one of four press releases concerning Hayworth the state party has released since the beginning of April. The state party is rallying behind Mitchell and is ready to make Hayworth public enemy number one (or maybe number two, after Jon Kyl).

Also, of interesting note, the state party has another candidate for District 5 listed. Lee Hollingsworth of Scottsdale is supposedly running. His website doesn't really expand on his candidacy.