AZ GOP Gov. race: Bold Bennett outpaces cowardly Ducey

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, running for reelection, is in the fight of his political life. He knows it and the rest of us smell the acrid scent of his palpable fear.

It’s almost enough to make to make him appear a pitiful victim. Then reality takes hold and it’s clear he’s brought this political calamity upon himself. Ducey’s nervous political operatives even tried — and failed — to remove conservative challenger Ken Bennett from the ballot.

In caving in to the demands of the striking teachers who abandoned their students for a week in violation of their contractual agreements, Ducey showed his cowardly underbelly. The 20% pay hike for a part-time job didn’t satisfy the striking unionists. So far in the 2018 election cycle, the “poor” teachers, through their leftist unions have contributed nearly $14 million to politicians —- 94% to Dems and a mere 5% to Republicans.*

Following radical Noah Karvalis, a 24-year-old hip-hop music teacher acclaimed by the Socialist Worker publication, teachers are now coalescing around a permanent Constitutional Amendment straight out of the Marxist playbook of redistribution of wealth with a “tax the rich,” ballot Initiative. Teachers don’t comprehend the simple fact that the small business owners, and those they consider “the rich” and need to be punished for their successes, already pay the lion’s share of taxes. They are the ones who took the risks, worked long hours and ultimately were able to provide jobs enabling their employees to buy homes, cars and send their kids to college. They don’t get the entire summer and long holiday breaks off.

Ducey brought us to this point with his weak response to the #REDsforED thugs, passing as educators. He then added insult to injury by claiming the wage hikes wouldn’t raise taxes. Given his falling on his sword for this economic nightmare, it’s interesting that he is reviled by the teachers, who do not intend to support him with their votes. Another calculated error on the part of the Guv.

Now he cowardly refuses to engage in either of the two scheduled gubernatorial debates. He cites as his reason that well-qualified Ken Bennett, Arizona’s former Secretary of State — the job next in line of succession to the governor and president of the state senate — didn’t show enough deference to Sen. John McCain when he suggested the seriously ill McCain should step down since he is unable to finish out his term.  McCain hasn’t been seen in nearly a year.

According to Ducey, bringing up the realities of McCain’s failing health and extended absence is out of bounds.  When Bennett said Arizona is unrepresented in the U.S. Senate, Ducey considered the facts concerning his mentor uncouth. Ducey not only refuses to debate Ken Bennett, but has maintained a close relationship with the McCain’s since he came to Arizona to attend ASU. Ducey’s first job was at Cindy Hensley McCain’s Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship. It has been reported he would appoint his former boss, Cindy, to her husband’s senate post when the vacancy occurs.

Somehow, Ducey’s offer is not uncouth, but mentioning the possibility is. 

* Center for Responsive Politics

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Ken Bennett: The conservative in AZ’s Governor race

Early ballots will be mailed August 1st

Arizona’s GOP gubernatorial primary is the race to watch. Despite the failing Arizona Republic newspaper’s ongoing deprecation of conservative challenger Ken Bennett, editorially advising him to get out of the race, his message is resonating with Republican voters. 

The Republicrat camp of incumbent Doug Ducey, a staunch McCain ally, became so unhinged by Ken Bennett’s entry into the race, his nominating petition signatures were challenged in court. They lost.  Bennett remains on the ballot.

The Hillary-endorsing newspaper continues to hurl invectives at Bennett, with editorial page editor Phil Boas calling Bennett’s efforts “bizarre,” while asserting he “won’t win.”

For a memory refresher regarding the behind the scenes machinations as the primary election approaches, we urge you to read,“Bennett’s in the race: AZ Gov. Doug McDucey should be nervous.”

It provides background to Ducey’s deep connection to his political mentor and longtime friend, John McCain and his former boss Cindy Hensley McCain. She hired him for his first job after he moved to Arizona from Ohio. Ducey worked at Hensley & Co., Cindy’s Anheuser-Busch beer empire.

Bennett, an Arizona native was raised in Prescott, where he was elected to the city council and served as mayor. Later, he was elected to the Arizona Senate where he was elected senate president by his colleagues. In 2008, Ken Bennett was elected secretary of state, by Arizona citizens, a job that is next in the line of succession to the governor. A successful businessman with a degree in accounting, Bennett possesses a skill set based in finance, and would not have interjected himself into the teacher’s union foray as Ducey did, rather than putting the teacher salary trickery back in the hands of the elected school boards who rightly have the ultimate oversight.

Nervous Ducey is reshuffling members of his executive staff to his campaign, as he refuses to debate the well-qualified and experienced Bennett. No doubt Ducey doesn’t want to defend himself for acquiescing to the demands of Arizona’s #RedsforEd striking unionist teachers who violated their contractual agreements as they followed a 23-year-old Bernie Sanders-supporting socialist, abandoning 840,000 Arizona students for a week. Ducey rewarded them with a 20 percent pay increase.  They weren’t satisfied and are now moving forward with a Marxist-styled “redistribution of wealth” ballot initiative, permanently amending the AZ Constitution.  The deceptively named Invest in Education Act will harm Arizona’s small business owners and job creators, to further enhance teacher’s salaries.

Given the facts, it’s not surprising Ducey is so shaky he refuses to debate Ken Bennett.

Send Ken Bennett a Clean Elections $5 donation and/or $160 in seed money to enable him to qualify for campaign funding. Time is short. He needs our help. Unlike Ducey, Bennett is not funded by lobbyists and high dollar donors who want to retain the weak Republicrat status quo.

Watch AZ GOP debates: AZ Corp Comm & Ed Supe

Foremost among its many duties, the Arizona Corporation Commission regulates utility rates. Integrity, which has been lacking in this key commission, is the paramount consideration. Candidates Rodney Glassman, Justin Olson, Jim O’Connor, and Eric Sloan join in the debate.

The Republican Corporation Commission candidates debate can be viewed HERE.

Olson is a former state legislator who lost a 2016 primary challenge to Congressman Andy Biggs. In 2017, he was appointed to the ACC by Gov. Ducey to fill a vacancy, and is currently running for a complete term.

Be sure to read the revealing link under duplicitous party switcher Glassman’s name. Glassman is an opportunistic chameleon, who will quickly slip into whatever political affiliation he thinks will benefit him. Jim O’Connor is the knowledgeable and reliable conservative in the race.

The debate involving Republican candidates running for Superintendent of Public Instruction debate can be viewed HERE.

Incumbent Diane Douglas squares off with Republican challengers Robert Branch, Jonathan Gelbart, Tracy Livingston and Frank Riggs. Douglas strongly asserts Common Core has been eradicated in Arizona Schools, though others say it’s merely been renamed.

The candidates were asked if they supported the recent week-long teachers’ strike in which 840,000 Arizona students were abandoned in violation of contractual agreements. Although each candidate said they did not support the walk out, Livingston, who touts her credentials as a teacher, was the sole equivocator, adding the strike was “the teachers’ voice.” Her voice spoke loud and clear.

Branch asserted “dollars should follow the student,” regardless of which school their parents choose — a concept few taxpaying parents would disagree with.

Gelbart has made an interesting selection of former Congressman Jim Kolbe heading up his list of endorsements. But then again, he has no historical memory. The congressional page scandal occurred when Gelbart was just 8-years-old.

SRAZ calls it a toss-up between Branch and Riggs — leaning Branch.

 The debates, hosted by Ted Simons, are sponsored by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission.

Watch AZ GOP debates: Sec. of State & AZ Treasurer

Clear winners: Steve Gaynor and Sen. Kimberly Yee

AZ GOP Sec. of State debate: Reagan vs. Gaynor:

The first Square Off is between problem-plagued incumbent Secretary of State Michele Reagan and challenger Steve Gaynor, a longtime Arizona business owner.

Under pressure, Reagan admits there were massive errors made under her administration. “That was my first election,” she says. “Everything went haywire. Yes, we’ve made mistakes in 2016, but it is now 2018.”

Gaynor: “Elections are the foundation of our democracy. If they’re not well run, if people don’t have confidence and trust in the process, it tears at the fabric of our society.”

Click HERE to view the GOP Secretary of State debate.

The adult in the room: Steve Gaynor

AZ GOP State Treasurer debate:: Sen. Kimberly Yee vs. Jo Ann Sabbagh

Yee, an Arizona native and former state senator, has previously worked at the Treasurer’s Office, is knowledgeable and handles herself with the confidence that comes with experience. Five former state treasurers have endorsed her.  Sabbagh, clearly out of her league, resorts to childish name calling.

Click HERE to view the Treasurer debate.

The adult in the room: Sen. Kimberly Yee

The debates, hosted by Ted Simons, are sponsored by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission.

Emulating his mentor, John McCain, Gov. Doug Ducey has refused to debate conservative challenger Ken Bennett. Ducey has lost support for acquiescing to the colossal 20% pay hike demands of the striking teachers who abandoned 840,000 Arizona students for a week as they followed a self-identified Socialist Pied Piper. Now, in true Marxist fashion, they are supporting a class warfare ballot initiative which will be an irrevocable Constitutional Amendment that will permanently “tax the rich,” putting untold burdens on Arizona’s small business owners who are job creators.  

Bennett, an Arizona native and businessman, is a former Secretary of State and previously served in the Arizona Senate, where his colleagues elected him senate president.

Ken Bennett is the conservative to support for AZ Governor.

AZ Republic pushes more liberal lunacy

Chamber of Commerce calls out Marxist agenda of teacher’s Socialist Pied Piper and gets hammered

When you’re an unrepentant liberal like the Arizona Republic’s editorialist Linda Valdez, playing games with words comes naturally. She advocates on behalf of physician assisted suicide, calling it, “a medically prescribed exit.” According to Valdez, denying this right is religion-based discrimination. “Suicide,” she claims, “is a loaded word that should be replaced with something less emotionally charged.” Most of the rest of us find it difficult to separate death from emotion. Another of her anti-faith offerings is, “Will the God Squad tale away your right to die.” Abortion on demand becomes “women’s health care.” There is nothing healthy about abortion — especially for the pre-born baby, who feels pain as he’s burned by chemicals or has his spinal cord severed and skull collapsed.  No wonder we need fabricated terminology to describe this horror.

Taxes?  “What’s wrong with Phoenix raising taxes?” is actually a headline topping one of her loads of drivel passing for a column.  Valdez is a staunch cradle to grave believer. With liberals, having the government provide for you throughout your lifetime is a belief comparable to the religious fervor she so disdains.

Valdez rails about illegals dying in the scorching desert heat, but places no blame on them for making unwise choices. They invade. They die. America is to blame.

She typifies the left-wing slant of the newspaper, which spews its outrage on Page One over what it apparently finds to be a slur in today’s edition. The leader of the striking teachers who abandoned their students for a week while violating their contractual agreements marching for a 20% pay increase is Noah Karvelis, 23, a self described Socialist, who was Bernie Sanders 2016 Arizona presidential campaign organizer. Sanders has no problem referring to himself as a Socialist. But when the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry issued this press release calling Karvelis out for addressing the 2018 Socialist convention in Chicago, that’s beyond the bounds of propriety. The leftist newspaper huffily declares it “offers a glimpse into the opposition strategy,”

After Gov. Ducey recklessly acquiesced to the teacher’s demands, they have come up with a Marxist redistribution of wealth scheme of placing hefty additional taxes on job creators they derisively call, “the rich.” It will be a ballot initiative in the form of an unalterable, permanent Constitutional Amendment with a permanent funding stream in addition to the others they already have 

Passage of ballot propositions — 301 in 2000 increasing the state sales tax and 123 in 2016 a grab from the state land trust — guaranteed more money for education, which apparently is never enough for the teachers who work 8½ months a year. School districts routinely hold budget overrides and bond elections to “get more money into the classroom” —- eduspeak for bolstering teacher’s salaries. A major premise of passing the Arizona Lottery in 1980 was that money from ticket sales would fund schools.

Don’t fall for the educrat extortionists latest ploy. This time the AZ Chamber of Commerce — an organization we’ve disagreed with on illegal immigration — is right on the money. 

NEA educrats give kneeling Kaepernick civic award

Highest earning AZ taxpayers get shafted by teachers’ union honoring football anthem protester

Upon reflection, what appears at first glance to be a bizarre news item is actually par for the course. The course being the leftist National Education Association (NEA). The teachers’ organization has awarded Colin Kaepernick a human and civil rights award.

Kaepernick, who refused to stand during the pre-game playing of the National Anthem, was given the NEA’s President’s Award in recognition of “his work to fight racial oppression through education and social justice activism” through his ‘Know Your Rights Camp.’

“The human and civil rights champions we honor tonight are the epitome of the fierce urgency of now, that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about in his ‘I Have a Dream speech,'” opined NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “Through their deeds and actions, they have demonstrated remarkable courage and conviction to stand up for racial and social justice. They have shown an unrelenting resolve and ferocity to make a real difference for public education, students and our nation’s future. They are shining examples of social justice activism, fighting against injustices every day, and making sure that our great nation lives up to its promise.”‘

Read the NEA tweet here, Then as you remind yourself about the harsh realities of the National Educational Association, remember that these are the people who spend more time with America’s children than most parents do. Propaganda works, as evidenced by the millennium turnout for Socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

In pressing her leftwing agenda of ferocious separatism, Eskelsen García seems to have forgotten the words of Dr. King that still resound in the speech she alludes to.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Kaepernick disrespects the flag and anthem that represent our county and afforded him the opportunity to earn what most of us can only dream about.

And here in Arizona the #RedsforEd teachers who walked out on the state’s over 800,000 public school students for a week, breaking their contractual agreements, have submitted in excess of the 150,642 required petition signatures for #InvestinEd, their Marxist-based class warfare initiative, qualifying for the General Election ballot. The astronomical taxes imposed by the irrevocable Constitutional Amendment would impact those who already pay the highest tax rates and are job creators. But the extortionist educrats, not content with the 20% pay hike Gov. Ducey generously doled out— “without raising taxes” — he claims, still want more.

When the words “getting more money into the classroom,” are uttered by the teachers who work on average 8 1/2 months a year, remember that 60% of the new funds extracted by an in-perpetuity tax, would go toward teacher salaries. That’s In addition to the 20% pay increases gifted to the striking teachers by Ducey.

They should have been fired, as President Reagan did with the striking unionist air traffic controllers. The earth didn’t stop rotating on is axis, supervisors filled in, new controllers were hired, and flights resumed.

This brief video is nearly a decade old, but listen to the words of then-NEA legal counsel Bob Chanin as he admits what is first and foremost on the teacher’s agenda. It’s not the students. (This video link replaces the non-functioning one previously here, most likely removed from YouTube by the NEA.)

Step up and help elect Ken Bennett AZ Governor

Qualifying for Clean Elections funding is essential

Ken Bennett is running for Governor of Arizona and needs our help. He has a unique message, saying he believes honesty still matters. Bennett notes, “Obamacare is the biggest job killer and destroyer of small business in history. And the entire U.S. has it because of Gov. Ducey and Sen. McCain.”

It’s impossible to argue with Bennett’s conclusion, “We have been fighting for 10 years for the full repeal of Obamacare and electing members of congress and governors based on that campaign promise. (Gov. Ducey made that promise four years ago.)  During the Obama administration, congress wrote a great repeal bill and we watched the House vote on that bill every year but it either died in the Senate or was vetoed by Obama.  So we deliver the Senate, then we deliver President Trump who is waiting, pen in hand, to sign it, but it never reaches his desk because Gov. Ducey loves Obamacare and is telling his senators it must not be repealed.”

“Ducey will never support the full repeal of Obamacare because he is now sweeping the money into his bad plan for education. The latest Arizona budget just increased the Medicaid Expansion tax, so the federal matching amount also increases, to pay for “education funding.”  I call this the good old ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ accounting gimmick,” says fiscal watchdog Ken Bennett.

Bennett is clear, saying he wants to be the Governor of Arizona and restore the Republican principle of State independence from the Federal Government as defined in the 10th amendment of the U.S. Constitution which reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Former Arizona Secretary of State and Senate President Ken Bennett has abundant credentials for the job. Equally important is the fact that he is not tied to the McCain syndicate and big spending lobbyists as Ducey is.

Ken Bennett is running as a Clean Elections candidate and is asking for help with $5.00 contributions  and up to $160 in seed money donations to qualify him for matching funds.

If you’re tired of establishment control of our state, conservative Ken Bennett is the man to elect. The Hillary Clinton-endorsing Arizona Republic has repeatedly and insultingly called on him to get out of the race. Doug Ducey, like John McCain and Jeff Flake are the brand of Republicrats the liberal newspaper can tolerate.

Ken Bennett has incurred its wrath.  That speaks volumes.

This post, “Bennett’s in the race: AZ Gov. Doug McDucey should be nervous,” provides background. We also made this bold prediction: “Ken Bennett can and will be AZ’s next governor.”  He was able to collect his needed statewide nominating petition signatures in record time, including a 26% additional cushion to impede Ducey campaign challenges. 

Now it’s up to you.

Your help is needed for this to become a reality.