If Alabama...Arizona?

The Deep South has not elected a Democratic Senator since 1992, but the state apparently drew the line at "If She's Old Enough to Pee, She's Old Enough for Me" on Tuesday. Doug Jones, who prosecuted two KKK perpetrators of the 1963 church bombing that killed four African-American girls, beat Roy Moore, who was wildly unqualified even before allegations of stalking adolescent girls emerged.

The natural question for readers here is, If this can happen in Alabama, why not in Arizona?

I'll take my victories where I can get them, to paraphrase Soleri. But this race had special circumstances. Republican turnout was lower than normal, depressed by the prospect of the odious Moore. And African-Americans overcame vote suppression to turn out in large numbers and put Jones in office — if only for three years.

Arizona lacks these advantages. The people who actually vote are overwhelmingly old, Anglo, and right-wing. This is why Democrats don't hold a single state-wide office. It's why the Republicans have controlled the Legislature for decades and never paid a price for the ongoing failure of "conservative" policies. These are the voters who reelected Joe Arpaio again and again, despite his lethal brand of "law enforcement."

The Hispanic vote, the holy grail of hopes to turn Arizona purple, even blue, has never materialized. Hispanic turnout is always shockingly low, even in city of Phoenix elections. It was not nudged by the attack of SB 1070. Arizona lacks the infrastructure of powerful political organizations and unions that bring large numbers of Latinos to the polls in, say, California. Most Hispanics are poor, and poor people vote in far fewer numbers than other income groups. And it can't be assumed that Hispanics are a lock for Democrats anyway. I heard from a number of Mexican-Americans who quietly supported SB 1070.

Arizona is also vulnerable to vote suppression, from partisan and/or incompetent county election officials to a Republican Secretary of State, in charge of statewide elections. In that office, a brazen Jan Brewer was co-chair of George W. Bush's reelection campaign in Arizona. As usual, she got away with it. Under the Voting Rights Act, Arizona was the only state outside the old Confederacy — although Arizona Territory was claimed by the CSA and had a delegate to the Confederate Congress — to face federal supervision of elections. But the Supreme Court overturned that in 2013.

I took heat on Twitter on Tuesday night when some thought I was endorsing Kyrsten Sinema for the race to replace Jeff Flake. But she has distinct advantages: She's a blue dog, she's attractive, and she had a Mormon upbringing (and the Saints never give up on their own). A Bernie Bro candidate might satisfy purists, on the way to a drubbing in November. Now we would need the Republicans to have an internecine battle like Conlan-Steiger fight which led to the election of Dennis DeConcini, or for the party to nominate an extraordinarily off-putting candidate. Both big "ifs."

You tell me?

 

 

Comments

[Arizona Eagletarian]

"The Hispanic vote, the holy grail of hopes to turn Arizona purple, even blue, has never materialized."

A more fair characterization would be (IMO), "The Hispanic vote has yet to materialize."

Maybe I'm reading into your essay more than you intended, but "... has never materialized..." seems to imply that it won't materialize in the future.

GOP voter suppression of the Hispanic vote exists in AZ. GOP suppression of Black voters in Alabama has been very real. But Blacks voted yesterday in Alabama and won.

Beside the fact that Alabama blacks may rightfully expect a backlash, there are lessons Arizona can learn from the Doug Jones victory. I hope we do.

[Petro]

I love ya, Arizona, but I don't see you being the harbinger of any forward, progressive movement.

Thou shalt be dragged from the hind.

[soleri]

By comparison to Alabama, Arizona is rootless, cosmopolitan, and wide-open. There are no century-old social matrices governing our relations. Just money for the most part. The racial polarization in Alabama is in its DNA. It tells virtually everyone what social reality is. In Arizona, social reality is what you drive and where your house is located.

The irony is that Alabama's deep wounds could produce a Democratic victory. Arizona should be so lucky! Poor blacks vote because they know how harsh reality is. In Arizona, reality can be packed into a U-Haul and driven to some new out-of-state refuge. The monied and settled do vote but participation drops off precipitously the further down the economic scale you fall.

Two things: unlike Doug Jones Krysten Sinema is a blue-dog because of Arizona's flaccid civic culture. A full-throated liberal cannot win a statewide race in Arizona but if the stars align, a moderate can.

Second, Donald Trump's presidency is imploding before our eyes. Imagine Ev Mecham winning the presidency and you understand what's happening. There has never been a more maladroit, absurd, and disreputable president. He is, as teenagers might say, totally toxic. By November of 2018, a national blue wave may well elect senators in purplish states like Arizona. Senator Krysten Sinema is not a long shot for this reason.

[drifter]

Alabamans had a sense of pride not to elect someone to so badly embarrass their home state. The Arizona electorate mostly doesn't consider Arizona its home, so they generally feel little personal embarrassment over the psychos who have been elected and re-elected over the decades in Arizona.

Arizona is politically red to the marrow. A majority of Republicans continue to back Trump. They certainly like the legislation, rollback of regulations and court appointments of the current Administration. Why is Arizona going to elect a Democrat to the US Senate?

[dave]

during the 1070 protests drums beat and flags waved and people marched, in the tens if not the hundreds of thousands...

i asked the voting registration table people how many signed up and they said, 'oh maybe three hundred...'

if you can vote and you don't and you fear the wolves, the ones that make your life miserable and your future uncertain then you ARE the sheep!

[Mike Doughty]

McConnell and his minions were faced with a mythic choice in the Alabama election.If they win they will become the party of child abusers.If Moore loses, their majority becomes even slimmer.What a choice,but slippery Mitch won by supporting Moore,the eventual loser.He can say he followed Trump but not take the blame for Moore's loss.Very slippery but he split the baby perfectly.Mitch is the one that needs to be watched.

[Jerry]

It was a razor thin victory that cannot be duplicated in AZ. I am reminded of your story about the AL governor calling you out once before!

[EP]

Wasn't Arizona about to turn purple in 2016? Weren't the results 48% for Trump, 44% for Hillary?

I'm not an expert in any way, shape or form but I'm trying to be hopeful. Even my cynical, millennial 28 year old daughter who voted 3rd party (don't get me started) said, after the Jones victory, that maybe this country isn't as stupid as she thought. Again--don't get me started on that either, because voting 3rd party was pretty damned stupid.

I'm also 2nd generation American whose grandparents emigrated from Mexico in the early 1900s...there's still hope for us Latinos.

[Bradley Dranka]

What happened in Alabama was the result of a very powerful force--outraged women (especially Black women)--coming to bear on a particularly vile and unattractive candidate. It didn't hurt that Doug Jones prosecuted--and got convicted--some of the 16th Street Church killers of 4 Black girls from 1964.

For the same kind of "outrage" to occur in Arizona, some kind of very egregious set of happenings would have to occur to stir up the minority women (who are mainly Hispanic). Most of them don't really seem to have much of a revolutionary political bent, because if they truly did, we'd have heard about it by now as a serious issue potentially threatening the conservative power structure. And we certainly haven't.

I'm also quite sure the Republican party is very careful vetting their own, both making sure they are "always loyal" and that there are no "skeletons" in their closets.

With regard to the Anglo women, it just seems to me that they are the enablers of the "macho man," intransigent, "my freedom is more important than fairness and equality," ugly Americanism. I really don't see them as anything more than meek lambs that would have hell to pay from their "menfolk" were they to want real change. They just seem content with the "same old, same old."

As far as the men are concerned, Arizona is a "man's" state--and they have every intention of trying to keep it that way.

That's why I don't see a repeat of Alabama in Arizona. But if enough people see how the "tax overhaul" is biased against the aged (by the next step of plugging the 1.5 TRILLION deficit resulting by cutting Social Security and Medicare), a tidal wave of "retiree anger) could put the Republicans on the run.

[Patricia Hale]

I think the proposition to kill school vouchers for all will mobilize parents and public school advocates and that will benefit the Dems whomever they are. The legislature has been majority R for 25 yrs., and AZ is dead last in per pupil funding. The effect and its cause are becoming apparent.

[Chris Thomas]

Krysten will beat Kelli Ward, if Ward is the nominee.