“Win,” the slogan says, “with Winchester”. The signs that have been vomited up all across District 1 seem to taunt the electorate: Are they merely referring to the Supervisor race, or do they smugly imply that the 2016 elections are another game in the minds of the county’s establishment elite? We have our answer, and all of Pima County should be disgusted with and infuriated by Chuck Huckelberry’s gambit.
Through numerous FOIA requests, the Arizona Daily Independent is now in possession of damning evidence of illegal electioneering, proof of selection of loyal-but-ineligible candidates, and, at long last, incontrovertible affirmation that one man calls all the moves in this county’s tinpot government. And Chuck arrays his pawns on the chessboard.
John Winchester is one of several of Chuck Huckelberry’s pawns this round, pitted in the primary against the only non-establishment Supervisor on the Pima County Board. Winchester came into this race with two astonishing weaknesses:
- He has brought suit against the City of Tucson for wrecking his bike downtown. Let us be clear: Winchester himself wrecked his bike while overtaking another cyclist and simultaneously crossing the rails of Tucson’s vaunted modern streetcar. The core claim of Winchester’s suit is that the city has given insufficient warning about the rails for the obtrusive toy train.
- Until becoming a candidate for Supervisor in District 1, Winchester did not reside in District 1. He and his family are recent transplants to his new part of the county.
Considering the brash self-adulation of certain establishment politicians for years leading up to and through the launch of the streetcar, the only local who wouldn’t know to cycle cautiously while downtown is the local who has been completely ignorant of and oblivious to local politics and the needs of the community. Still, the man who has yet to withdraw his frivolous suit against the City for lack of warning about the tracks has come up with his own regional transportation plan. Arrogance? Hubris? Ineptitude? Obsequiousness? Wrong–no matter the motivation.
As the pieces move around a chessboard, the spectators must follow the logic. In this case, Huckelberry, appears to have moved one pawn into position to attack its own queen. Strengthening this attack, the only other “Republican” pawn on the Board–outgoing Supervisor Carroll–has asked his loyalists for support for Winchester as well. In reality, however, the establishment is attacking the conservative with a ringer brought into the district for no other reason than to replace the incumbent with an obedient candidate friendly to the status quo. The play begs two questions:
- Why would an upstart candidate professing a desire to improve the community choose to run against an incumbent of the same party? Why wouldn’t he instead run against one of the candidates that should be in opposition?
Answer: Winchester is actually in opposition to District 1 and its incumbent, and in partnership with the establishment on the Board of Supervisors and the County Administrator. - What kind of political pawn would uproot his family and move, only to gamble on running for a political office? What politician would then emblazon every street corner with pictures of his toddler children and wife?
Answer: One who has powerful alliances to support his move and his candidacy, with the anticipation that he will be ushered into office by the establishment and a complicit legacy media, and one who needs to humanize himself to cover over the reality of his sham candidacy.
Winchester’s attack–weak from its outset–is now further diminished by one of the many galling revelations of the Independent’s FOIA requests: County apparatchiks selected him as the flash young runt who could put a clean-shaven face on the establishment message to District 1. The County Administrator himself blessed Winchester’s candidacy, and we now have incontrovertible evidence of that ploy. The County’s lobbyist offered Winchester up to Huckelberry in an email on March 7th, before Winchester declared himself a candidate on March 30th.
Did Winchester trade real estate to accommodate his transfer into the district? If so, who helped him expedite his move, and what establishment ties were involved? If not, if Winchester and his family picked up and moved with ease because they simply rent, wouldn’t the voters in the district prefer a candidate with active interest in the game, with skin in the game? A renter can skip town as easily as allowing a magazine subscription to lapse; a property owner has vested interest in the county’s business. However he came to reside in his new home district, Winchester has yet to be elected and already appears to be as selective about the rules he follows as the elected officials of the County.
Considering the email proffering Winchester as a candidate, his move to District 1 for the purpose of running, and his spiteful lawsuit against the city, we have at least threefold proof of his unsuitability for any office, let alone the one seat on the Board that presently blocks the establishment from attacking the electorate on all sides.
As we continue to develop these themes in the Arizona Daily Independent through the run-up to August’s elections, a gravely disconcerting pattern will quickly emerge, and an unelected bureaucrat will be proven to have excessive and far-reaching power beyond what should ever rest with one person. Chuck Huckelberry and his establishment cronies are playing high-stakes games, and they hope to win with Winchester. If this insipid pawn called Winchester becomes a Supervisor, every other voter in Pima County loses.