Konst makes some very good points in her op ed about the Democratic leadership in Arizona blowing their chance. Now that two bloggers have given their comments, I feel it is time to share a dissenting opinion http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/20121129… First up Konst states that growing the party is the number one mission of a party and the Democratic Party did not grow. Voter registration is party basics. Well we became nearly dead last in voter registration share with about 36% Rep, 33% Other, 30.5% Dem and barely 1% third parties. The state committee elected Cherny knowing about his No labels support. Sunday Square off on 7-24-2011: Cherny said that he did not care if independents surpassed democrats in share of registration and they do now.
Specifically Cherny said there is no majority party in Arizona and that is about a third, a third and a third. Resnik said Democrats might be the number three party in 2012-an interesting prediction. Cherny said some people think that is a bad thing for independents to gain registration but Cherny said it is the world we live in. He also said it was unlikely that he would run for statewide office but focusing on the Democratic party and having three small children at home.We have people in no party surpassing the Democratic Party registration in Arizona. This is a serious problem for political parties but the parties do very little to address the frustration many voters are expressing by registering in no party
We backed establishment candidates looking to Republican models which was essentially true in more cases than not or the incumbent. Running closed candidacies with insider candidates that was true especially on the CD level-challengers were eliminated as much as possible to the chosen ones and CD2 was where Barber said he was not going to run but only fill the rest of Giffords term. Challengers being denied access to the VAN that they had to pay money for with some Executive Board deciding sounds closed to me and deciding positions to take on propositions without asking the county committee or state committee but some Executive Board again, amazing. Penzone was supported and Rowan denied access is true in Maricopa County. Penzone was determined victorious before the democratic primary with no incumbent running.
Further if Konst was greeted with the title sweetie and how about starting at school board, that was sexist “sweetie” and “school board first” is a Republican idea-we had many candidates who never ran for school board running but not for the first time. CD2 was setting her sights quite high-I will agree to that. But suggesting she expected Bill Roe to memorize 1000 people was wrong because she stated that she called him several times declaring her candidacy and sent him her bio so thinking she was an intern was Roe’s mistake. Finally, the idea that much of the leadership is about 20-30 years older than 18 is also true and assuming a diminutive position to Konst is also part of the age difference. I could see where it might look like Tammany Hall.
Arizona Netroots 