To The Editor,
When was the last time you saw the Pima County Republican Party (PCRP) actually engage a Democrat office holder? In fact the PCRP spends more time fighting Conservatives than they do as an “Opposition Party” to Democrat Liberals. Almost every time a Conservative runs for office in Pima County he/she gets a Primary. This has been the case for at least thirty years and probably more.
Probably most important of all: the Republican Party should fight tooth and nail to change our City Charter’s Election Laws that force all Council candidates to run ward-wide in a Primary, but City-wide in the General. Think abot that: Imagine if our Congressmen had to run in their Districts in a Primary, but had to run Statewide in the General. AZ would have no Democrat Congressmen in Washington because Republicans outnumber Dems in the State. But in Tucson the Dems like the system… and the PCRP doesn’t bother to fight to change the City Charter.
We tried a Charter Change in the early eighties, but our own damn party (Lew Murphy) opposed it!
Other Examples:
- The only County Supervisor who gets flak from our Party is Ray Carroll (remember?).
- When I ran in 2004 the only candidate the PCRP ran was my Primary opponent (and there were many unopposed Democrats running County wide)
- Remember the lack of Party effort for the Kelly for Congress Campaign? He got most of his support and donations from Phoenix and people like Joe Arpaio
- There has been no concentrated effort by the Party to criticize the Mayor/Council for decades (Potholes, Rio Nuevo, Rainbow Bridge, losing $25 million, etc).
- In fact who is the Pima County Party Chairman? And why is he/she silent on ALL issues?
Republican Conservatives in the city know they cannot win with Citywide General elections for Ward offices. Does anybody give a Damn?
Bill Heuisler