Strike Everything

U.S. Rep. David Schweikert says he won’t get the committee assignment he wanted most, but he is still holding out for an assignment that “has something to do with numbers.”

Schweikert made an appearance, along with U.S. Reps. Ben Quayle and Paul Gosar, at the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s “Welcome to Washington” breakfast today at the Hyatt. The three Republican freshmen said they had moved into their offices in D.C., and are expecting to receive their committee assignments by Friday.

Prime committee assignments will be even more valuable this year, and harder for freshmen to attain, because House leaders have decided to reduce the number of members serving on the committees.

Gosar, who represents the mostly rural 1st Congressional District, used a very unfortunate pun by saying he would be a ”natural” choice for a seat on the Natural Resources Committee, though he didn’t sound very optimistic that he’d get it. 

By the way, Gosar, a dentist by trade, used a toothbrush as a visual aid during his speech. It was part of an analogy about brushing away the plaque in Washington.

Quayle didn’t say which committees he was lobbying for. He said he plans to stand tall for Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District in whatever capacity is chosen for him, later taking a tone reminiscent of Ringo Starr when he told the crowd that he is just “really happy” to be serving in Congress.

Schweikert, who knocked off Harry Mitchell in Arizona’s 5th Congressional District, said he has been told that he won’t get his first choice of committee assignments: Financial Services. Instead, the former Maricopa County Treasurer said he is still in the running for a different committee where his skills with accounting and statistics would be useful.

Schweikert didn’t get into specifics, but all of his talk about numbers probably means he put in for Ways and Means or the Budget Committee. As a test of boldness, he may have requested a spot on Appropriations, though seats on that committee are extremely valuable commodities and usually off limits to freshmen.

“My gift is creating spreadsheets,” he said after the breakfast event.

We see lots of things from our virtual perch high above 1700 W. Washington. Our exposure to all things political in Arizona typically results in some mix of these three reactions: Often we laugh, occasionally we’re astonished, and rarely we’re surprised.

Our continual challenge to present the news to you, our faithful readers, in such a way as to grab your attention, sometimes produces wild and outlandish results. Our creativity can be entertaining, but in many cases it’s just too far out there to present in a serious manner.

However, readers, you are about to benefit from our newsroom’s sleep-deprived and coffee-fueled state on this Nov. 3, so here are eight headlines from the election that never made it into the Arizona Capitol Times – and for good reason.

• Brewer has did it!
• Citizen Goddard – even more boring than Politician Goddard
• Quayle ready to knock the hell out of Washington… if he can find it
• Prop. 203 outcome still hazy
• Terry, Barry and Larry announce reality TV series, premium ice cream brand
• Horne: Secretary of State is a step up from AG, right?
• Ducey creams Cherny
• Schweikert offers to buy Mitchell’s abandoned CD5 office

Jon Hulburd, Ben Quayle

Ben Quayle got the big name. Jon Hulburd got the bigger money.

At least that’s how it went according to the last-minute financial disclosures leading up to today’s election.

Quayle’s campaign reported to federal elections officials Monday (Nov. 1) that it received a $5,000 donation from SarahPAC, the political action committee of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Hulburd, meanwhile, reported six contributions totaling $11,500. Those donations mostly came from political action committees, such as a pro-choice group, United Mine Workers of America and two Democratic groups.

Of course these last-minute infusions pale in comparison to overall fundraising in the race for Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District. Hulburd has dumped $500,000 of his own money into his war chest in recent weeks but still trails the well-oiled Quayle machine in fundraising.

Quayle has taken in more than $2.1 million, while Hulburd has raised about $1.3 million, according to the latest reports.

- Bill Bertolino

Jon Hulburd, Democratic candidate for Arizona's 3rd Congressional District, talks with a volunteer at Legislative District 10 Democratic headquarters on Election Day. (Photo by Josh Coddington)

Even though it was his fifth, but not his last, meet-and-greet event of the day, Jon Hulburd was all smiles as he entered Legislative District 10 Democratic headquarters late in the afternoon on Election Day.

The Democrat stacked his schedule after deciding that a mix of burning shoe leather and encouraging volunteer efforts was the way to equalize Republican Ben Quayle’s name recognition, party registration advantage and money edge in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District, although he also poured $500,000 of his own money into his campaign.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for over a year,” said the first-time candidate. “I’ve still gotta meter out the rest of the day.”

Hulburd said he is expecting a very close race, citing a recent poll – commissioned by a Democratic blog — showing he and Quayle neck-and-neck. He said out-working Quayle on the ground level will be his key to victory.

“We can beat our opponent in the field with a real live get-out-the-vote effort,” Hulburd said. “We feel that our ground-game can make the difference if it comes down to 1,000 or so votes.”

Hulburd said his campaign volunteers can be the deciding factor. Indeed, his Election Day press release offered a number to call for anyone who might need a ride to the polls. “We have a guy zipping around town,” Hulburd said.

As Hulburd rushed away to his next stop, a two-hour school board meeting, he seemed energized by the closeness of the race. He said attending a school board meeting might become his Election Day tradition, since he had also attended a school board meeting on Election Day in the Aug. 24 primary.

“It’ll keep my anxiety level a little lower,” Hulburd said.

-Josh Coddington

Heading into the final stretch of the general election campaign, Democrat Jon Hulburd is making a last-ditch effort to court women voters in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District.

It’s clearly a group he’s appealed to before, as earlier Christian radio ads used a female moderator to attack his opponent, Republican Ben Quayle, for contributing to the predecessor of the sex-themed website TheDirty.com.

This time, though, Hulburd is veering away from the negative campaign tactics and is going positive.

Actually, it’s his wife, Carrie, who is going positive with what is designed to look like a personalized, hand-written, “woman to woman” letter talking up her husband.

She’s even included a small glossy photo of the couple on their wedding day in 1984.

A wedding photo? That was a new one for me.

Hulburd’s campaign would not disclose the cost of the mailer nor would it reveal the number of female voters who received it. Josh Abner, Hulburd’s spokesman, would only say it was sent to “tens of thousands” of women voters of all political stripes. In the letter, Carrie discloses that she’s a lifelong Republican.

Even political veterans such as Democratic strategist Mario Diaz said he’s never seen a wedding photo dropped as an accompanying piece to a political mailer.

But overall, Diaz said it’s smart to go after independent and moderate Republican women, who might be more persuadable to the Democrat in the heavily Republican district. The mailer also did a good job of painting Hulburd as a candidate with character, without veering into a negative contrast piece that voters are, late in the campaign, growing tired of, he said.

“This is a great, in my opinion, closing argument for Hulburd’s campaign,” Diaz said. “If Quayle had not had the character issues, I would say it probably would be a piece that should have been sent out as an introductory piece at the beginning of the campaign.”

But will it work? Hulburd battles Quayle in a district that has 50,000 more registered Republicans than Dems. He’s also outmatched in fundraising and name ID.

An Oct. 18 poll by Public Policy Polling showed Hulburd faring slightly better among men than women, despite his attempts at courtship.

- Bill Bertolino

Jon Hulburd, Ben Quayle

The publicly released polling data on Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District is like a scrap of food to a starving man – it may not be the best information, but it’s all we’ve got.

North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling on Oct. 18 released an automated poll showing Democrat Jon Hulburd with a 46 to 44 lead over GOP nominee Ben Quayle in the heavily Republican district, with 10 percent undecided. The poll was commissioned by the liberal blog Daily Kos.

The poll came on the heels of a blog post by the website RareJazzCongress.com that showed Quayle up by about 2 points. The website said the poll was conducted by a conservative 501(c)(4) group, though it didn’t say who commissioned the poll or who conducted it.

Neither campaign has released its own polling data, and Public Policy Polling was the first group to release its own survey on the race. Pollster Michael O’Neil, of Tempe-based O’Neil Associates, said many people might be inclined to dismiss the poll because it was commissioned by such a partisan group. But the biggest reason for skepticism is that Public Policy Polling uses robocalls to survey voters, which O’Neil said are far cheaper and far less trustworthy than polls that have real people asking the questions.

“This is what you get when nobody’s willing to pay for it,” O’Neil said. “I don’t think the methodology is inherently biased. It’s just not reliable.”

As for the poll cited by RareJazzCongress.com, which used a live operator to survey 331 likely voters, O’Neil said the lack of information on who conducted the poll and who paid for are bad signs, as is the 4.1 percent margin of error. A poll of 331 voters should have a margin of error of about 5.5 percent, he said.

Hulburd has hammered Quayle repeatedly over his connections to a racy, sex-themed website, and the poll showed those allegations stand out in voters’ minds. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they had an unfavorable opinion of Quayle, compared to 34 percent who said their opinion of him was favorable.

O’Neil said the unfavorable opinions aren’t surprising, given the crush of negative publicity Quayle has gotten over his ties to DirtyScottsdale.com, now known as TheDirty, as well as a perception among some that he is unqualified.

“Ask anybody what they know about him and they’ll tell you the racy website and his daddy used to be vice president,” O’Neil said.

But some of the numbers don’t quite add up, said GOP consultant Chris Baker. Hulburd has aggressively courted female Republican voters, even running an ad on a Christian radio station bashing Quayle over his ties to the website. But the PPP poll showed Hulburd faring better among Republican men than women.

And 281 of the 655 respondents listed themselves as moderates, with 66 percent choosing Hulburd. The poll, however, didn’t break down the party affiliation of the self-described moderates. Baker said 60 to 65 percent of Republicans usually identify themselves as conservatives.

“My sense is the poll itself is heavy on moderate Republicans, and that’s probably what’s throwing Hulburd’s numbers up,” he said.

Aside from the robocall methodology, the poll didn’t have any glaring deficiencies. Its sample of 655 likely voters leaned heavily on Republican and independent voters, and the “who would you vote for” questions were asked first, before other questions that could’ve swayed the respondents’ answers, O’Neil said.

The Hulburd campaign played up Quayle’s unfavorable ratings. Campaign spokesman Josh Abner also touted Hulburd’s whopping 66 to 27 lead among the 281 respondents who identified themselves as moderates.

“Arizonans have seen Ben Quayle in action – he miscalculated the federal budget by $11 trillion and they know about his ever-changing story on writing for a sex-steeped website,” said Hulburd spokesman Josh Abner. “Voters also know Ben Quayle doesn’t have the chops to get our economy moving again and is simply another politician trying to cash in on a last name.”

Quayle campaign spokesman Jay Heiler’s only response was that Quayle is “very confident about the progress of the race.”

“We … advise the Hulburd campaign to rely heavily on the data,” Heiler quipped.

O’Neil doesn’t put a lot of faith in the poll but said it’s better than nothing, as long as people recognize its flaws.

“Here’s your choice – you either have no information or information from a methodology that I don’t put a whole lot of stock in. I’ll go for imperfect information over no information, but would I stake my life on it? Nope,” O’Neil said.

-Jeremy Duda

Jon Hulburd, Ben Quayle

The race for the open seat in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District didn’t take long to get, um, dirty. And ironically, it’s been all about who has staked out the moral high ground.

Democrat Jon Hulburd took the first swing last week in Christian radio ads criticizing his opponent, Republican Ben Quayle, for his ties to the tawdry website DirtyScottsdale.com, now called TheDirty.com.

It took a full week, but Quayle responded in ads of his own, airing this week in Phoenix on Christian and conservative radio, juxtaposing his stances with what he describes as Hulburd’s liberal positions on social issues. One of the more fiery claims in the ad was that Hulburd “uses his massive wealth to fund abortion lobbies.”

Hulburd’s campaign almost immediately sent out this jaw-dropping response: “Ben Quayle founded a sex-steeped website that refers to women as ‘sperm catchers’ and to Asians as ‘noodles,’ then he tried to lie about it and got caught,” said Josh Abner, Hulburd communications director.

Talk about dirty; we don’t know whether Quayle has ever actually used those descriptions.

“You can see the sleight of hand in the statement he put out today. Now he puts out quotes that he’s not even attributing to Ben Quayle,” said Jay Heiler, Quayle communications director. “Now he’s apparently going to pull whatever he wants from this website and put it out in press statements.”

The statement went on to say: “Remember, it’s Ben Quayle himself who wrote, ‘my moral compass is so broken I can’t even find the parking lot.’” Abner was referring to a post written by a “Brock Landers,” the name of the fictional porn star in the movie “Boogie Nights,” and the pseudonym that the DirtyScottsdale.com founder alleges Quayle used to write for the site.

After first denying any ties to the salacious website, Quayle changed his story to say he did in fact contribute to the site and did so under a pseudonym, but doesn’t remember which one, or which ones, he used. He has always said he “is not Brock Landers,” a crafty defense because he isn’t Brock Landers. Nobody is Brock Landers.

But it’s a stretch to say Quayle founded the website, as his name appears nowhere on the original incorporation paperwork filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission. Quayle did, however, say he introduced the founder of the site, Hooman Karamian, to an intellectual property attorney and wrote commentaries to help drive traffic.

As for Hulburd’s ties to the abortion lobby, Quayle’s campaign was referring to what they said was Hulburd’s political contributions to Arizona List, which promotes the election of pro-choice, female Democratic candidates.

“Jon has never shied from his position that he is pro-choice,” Abner said, who confirmed that Hulburd contributed $5,025 to Arizona List in 2009 and this year.

Abner added it’s fair game to go after Quayle for his ties to the website.

“Until we get a straight answer from Mr. Quayle, I don’t see how we can think any differently – that he supports the views of that site,” he said.

Hulburd, an attorney and former small-business owner, seems to be staking out a position that he is the more qualified candidate based on longevity and ties to the central Phoenix district, saying he’s lived there for more than 20 years, raised his five children there and sits on the board of the Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

Quayle, also an attorney, is running on his conservative stances against President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He famously made the TV ad calling Obama the worst president in history.

- Bill Bertolino

If you thought the cantankerousness (yep, that’s really a word) of Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District would end after the 10-way GOP primary race, Jon Hulburd has some news for you.

Hulburd’s campaign blasted a statement into Arizona’s e-mail netherworld that just ripped Quayle to pieces, even referring to Quayle as “Brock Landers.”

“This election is now between Jon Hulburd and Brock Landers. It’s between a young man who fabricated a family, degraded women, and then tried to lie about it, and a small businessman and father of five who has been dedicated to his community. These concerns were raised by Republicans during the primary and at least 77 percent of Republican voters were unhappy with Ben Quayle’s response.”

It appears as though Hulburd isn’t going to play nice. And it almost sounds like his campaign is happy to be facing Quayle in the November general election.

Now we’ll have to see if he can hang, considering he’s facing a significant voter registration advantage and has yet to run the gauntlet of public scrutiny that bruised just about every other candidate in that district.

Hulburd, who gained the Democratic nomination without a primary battle, may be good at offense. But certainly there will come a time when the media and his opponent will test his defensive abilities.

That test might come sooner rather than later, judging the response from Quayle’s campaign a few hours after Hulburd’s blast.

“It’s always great to see desperation set in around your opponent on the first day of the campaign,” said Jay Heiler, Quayle’s new communications director. “Hulburd apparently thinks there’s a crying demand in Washington for another liberal blowhard who talks out of both sides of his mouth and sells out the taxpayers to the special interest tax cartel. But from here in Arizona, it looks like all those positions are taken.”

-Matt Bunk

There were some big surprises last night: Chris Deschene toppled Sam Wercinski on the Democratic side of the secretary of state race; Cloves Campbell Jr. lost his House seat; and David Braswell got whomped by Lori Klein in the Legislative District 6 Senate race.

We all watched in amazement as Jesse Kelly beat Jonathan Paton in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District.

But nothing sent bigger shockwaves across the Valley than Ben Quayle’s win in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District. It’s impossible to say definitively whether he came from behind in the final week leading up to the primary election or if he was leading all along.

In the weeks leading up to the primary election, the mud started flying amongst the front-running CD3 candidates. Whether that had an effect on the outcome of this race is still a matter of debate.

“I think some of the negative campaigning worked,” Waring said. “Ben (Quayle) took some shots at us – if that made a difference, I’m not sure.”

Waring, who mostly stayed away from attack ads, said he ran a “crisp, positive” campaign. “I had no desire to attack my opponents,” he said.

Many of the campaigns in CD3 had written off Quayle as a third- or fourth-place finisher after Quayle’s campaign sent out a mailer that may have went too far in depicting him as a family man and his highly publicized debacle with the racy website dirtyscottsdale.com (now called thedirty.com).

Vernon Parker was considered viable in the final days leading up to the election – at least according to many political insiders. The Parker campaign did call attention to the disputed mailer, although Parker draws a distinction between mud-slinging and calling attention to facts.

“I really believe voters needed to know what their congressperson would do for them,” Parker said on primary night. “I believe in truthful comparisons. When a campaign puts out something they know is untrue, that’s despicable.”

Waring was considered by many to be a favorite in the race after news outlets reported that rival candidate Steve Moak had used his charity organization to promote products sold by a for-profit company he once owned.

As Moak trailed both Waring and Quayle early on primary night, he said he was happy with how his campaign was conducted. “I think we ran a good campaign. Looking back, I wouldn’t have done anything different,” he said.

None of that matters now though, as Quayle has wrapped up the Republican nomination to take on Democrat Jon Hulburd in the November general election.

It’s a scenario that Democrats were hoping for – figuring, perhaps, that Quayle would be more vulnerable to attacks than many of the other GOP candidates in the district.

But it’s still going to take a lot to drag down Quayle to within striking distance in the Republican-leaning district. And it’s still not clear whether Hulburd has the juice to make it a competitive race.

We’ll soon see if national Democrats think it’s a race worth throwing money at – the word is that they’ve rejected Hulburd’s requests for cash so far. If you see Hulburd’s campaign coffers grow significantly, you can bet that the party thinks Quayle is vulnerable. If not, another Quayle is almost certainly going to wind up in federal office.

-Matt Bunk and Josh Coddington

Jim Waring

U.S. Sen. John McCain will host a fundraiser for ex-staffer Jim Waring, giving the former lawmaker a cash infusion as he heads into the final week of his primary campaign.

McCain endorsed Waring in late July and will host a fundraiser for the former state senator on Aug. 18 at the Paradise Valley Country Club, according to campaign spokesman Bert Coleman.

Despite lackluster fundraising, most polls put Waring near the front of the pack in the 10-way GOP primary for the 3rd Congressional District, and Coleman said the extra campaign cash will be used for additional direct mail and television advertising. With Ben Quayle sliding in the polls, Coleman said Waring is running “neck and neck” with businessman Steve Moak, based on the campaign’s internal polling.

“It’s basically a two-person race,” Coleman said. “Polls that show Steve Moak way ahead in the polls are an illusion.”

In his Aug. 12 campaign finance report to the Federal Elections Commission, Waring reported raising only $237,000, compared to $1.1 million for Moak, including about $300,000 he loaned his campaign. Coleman, however, said Waring hasn’t been held back by his relatively low fundraising numbers.

“We have been outspent by multiples of three and four, and Jim is basically neck and neck with someone who has spent well over $1 million,” he said. “Jim Waring has been in people’s homes and living rooms visiting with voters. He has walked and knocked on the doors of tens of thousands of voters. … He walks 65 hours a week.”

Moak and Waring are looking to take advantage of Quayle’s recent fall from grace. Quayle, the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, is the race’s fundraising leader and was long considered the frontrunner, but his recent drop in the polls was punctuated with revelations of ties to a racy, sex-themed website that satirizes Scottsdale nightlife.

Waring may benefit as well from the attacks his opponents are launching against each other. Two recent mailers from the Quayle campaign take aim at Moak, and one targets former Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker as well.

-Jeremy Duda