While a small band of Republicans is seeking primary challengers against sitting legislators, rarely do democrats allow primary challengers. But the turf war that has been brewing in the Pima County democrat ranks has finally resulted in a contested race.
Sal Baldenegro, the son of long time Raul Grijalva rival Soloman Baldenegro Sr., and husband to Wenona Benally Baldenegro, has filed to run in the LD3 senate race. Baldenegro filed the paperwork to challenge Senator Olivia Cajero Bedford. According to the Yellow Sheet, “In announcing his candidacy, Baldenegro claimed that he has received the endorsement of Senator Steve Gallardo. The latter’s endorsement, in particular, has raised the eyebrows of Cajero Bedford, who told our reporter that Gallardo came sweeping into her office last week to swear it’s not true.”
The Yellow Sheet reports that Gallardo “was like, adamant, that he had not endorsed [Baldenegro].”
According to the Yellow Sheet said Cajero Bedford did not believe Gallardo at first. As a result she visited Baldenegro’s house on Sunday to confirm that Gallardo was supporting Baldenegro. “However, he wasn’t home and Cajero Bedford left a message with his wife, Wenona Benally Baldenegro,” reported the Yellow Sheet.
Baldenegro was not home and he did return a call from a Yellow Sheet reporter.
Gallardo told a Yellow Sheet reporter that he is not endorsing Baldenegro. Gallardo said that he does not support primary fights for democrats. Gallardo told the Yellow Sheet that said he advised labor groups that they “should not have any Democrats being contested in blue districts. Our focus has to be the red districts.”
In 2012, Baldenegro’s father wrote a scathing letter to supporters, charging his fellow democrats with racism by injecting “itself into Primary races to deprive candidates of color the opportunity to be elected.” Baldenego claimed that “actions against candidates of color were taken during the election season, precisely because it was election season, with the goal of depriving candidates of color a fair shot at being elected!”
Baldenegro outlined in detail the racist past of the Democratic Party in his letter. Baldenegro’s daughter-in-law, Wenona Benally Baldenegro, Sal’s wife, was denied regular access to Democratic Party information and assistance in her run against Ann Kirkpatrick in the Democratic Primary that year.
Baldenegro claimed that the campaign against Wenona is rooted in an essay, “All Politics is Local: The Democratic Party’s Abandonment of the Core,” by Dr. Rudy Acuña, in which Acuña criticizes the Arizona Democratic Party for not supporting candidates of color or issues of import to the Mexican American community and mentions Wenona.”
Kirkpatrick was running for her second term in Congress when Baldenegro asked his fellow Democrats to “Give and withhold their votes selectively, on the basis of principle rather than the “Democratic racism is qualitatively better than Republican racism.”
Baldenegro’s letter:
Estimadas/os: These ruminations focus on using our vote intelligently, independently, and selectively, in a principled and disciplined manner. We can’t honestly believe our vote is important and precious and then blindly give those “precious” votes away to a political party that takes our vote for granted.
Likewise, we can’t ethically condemn Republican efforts to suppress the vote of people of color and simultaneously condone Democratic efforts to suppress the candidacies of Latinos and Native Americans. Both of these vile acts violate the spirit of the Voting Rights Act, not to mention common decency.
We either condemn both or we condemn neither.
There are two Democratic Parties (and an appendage)…
The one Democratic Party is comprised of the rank-and-file Democrats—decent folk who are not involved in the machinations of the Party elite. Because they are purposely kept in the dark, these Democrats have no idea what is done behind their backs and in their name.
The other Democratic Party is made up of an elite clique who despises the rank-and-file membership, and in violation of its own rules and tradition intervenes in Primary races, and decides which Democrats to support on race-ethnic grounds, and routinely betray the principles they purport to believe in and subscribe to.
To read the rest of the letter click here.