Next you’ll be telling me that dogs and cats are living together!
The bipartisan odd couple banding together to fight election deniers in Arizona
Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Republican Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer have found common cause since a bitter 2020 face-off. (Politico)
PHOENIX — Election officials don’t normally draw standing-room-only crowds in basement music halls. But the noise around elections in Arizona is anything but normal right now.
Roughly 120 people crammed into Valley Bar — entering through the back alley, down a flight of stairs into a dimly-lit venue stuffed with rows of folding chairs — in early February to hear recently-elected Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, debate proposals to change how the state votes and counts its ballots. Recent close elections in the state have seen top-of-the-ticket races uncalled for days, an issue they’re eager to address.
Even more surprising than Fontes and Richer drawing a crowd to discuss election administration amid local Super Bowl festivities and a major golf tournament is the fact the two men were sharing a stage at all.
It’s been little more than two years since they faced off in a bitter, acrimonious election, with Richer ultimately unseating then-Maricopa Recorder Fontes in November 2020 to become the chief election official for the country’s fourth-largest county. Richer was sharply critical of how Fontes was running the county office, alleging he was overextending the role beyond that of a neutral administrator.
But Richer voted for Fontes in 2022 to be secretary of state, he told POLITICO in an interview the day before the event. “If you would have told me that two years ago, I would have been very confused as to what had happened,” Richer said. “But then again, what’s happened over the last two years is very confusing to me, and is very exceptional.”
“What’s happened” is that Arizona became ground zero for conspiracy theories, mainly fed by former President Donald Trump and his allies, that a vast underground cabal was working to steal elections. Arizona was one of the handful of states where Trump unsuccessfully tried to overturn the results in 2020. But the movement has metastasized far beyond that — into a GOP-led review of Maricopa’s votes denounced by the Republican-controlled county board of supervisors, and then a Republican ticket in 2022 that largely subscribed to the “stolen election” mythology, including Mark Finchem, the GOP secretary of state nominee Fontes defeated. Those midterms saw resurfaced and unsubstantiated allegations of intentional malfeasance in elections, as well as a failed attempt by GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and others to get the results overturned.
Now, the top election officials in Arizona and its biggest county are preparing to battle the same forces in 2024, amid the pressure and scrutiny of a presidential race. The cascade of attacks on Arizona’s democratic system has seen Fontes and Richer make peace over their differences — to a degree. It’s one of the most striking examples of one-time political foes setting aside past rivalries to band together over the big question of democracy.
I have had this article open in a tab for 3 or 4 weeks, but I haven’t had time to do a post until now. With the Republicans turning the House into a clown show, it’s easy to miss the many good things have come out of the elections in November.
Open thread.
eclare
Got a doggo and kitties living together right here! So things like the above can happen…
Geminid
Fun Adrian Fontes facts:
Adrian Fontes served four years in the Marine Corp in the early 1990s. He finished as a Marksmanship Instructor.
Fontes’s family moved to what is now Arizona in the first half of the 18th century.
Roger Moore
I think the whole election denial thing is highlighting a fracture in the Republican party. On the one side, there are old-school Republicans who want to win elections but care enough about democracy to put it ahead of winning any individual election. On the other side, you have the fascists who really care only about power and will happily discard democracy if it gets in the way of them being allowed to do what they want. I think the conflict is most obvious in things like Secretary of State and County Clerk elections, since those offices are so deeply involved in running elections. But all the talk about fraud, stolen elections, etc. is a pretext for clinging to and/or seizing power regardless of what the voters want.
JPL
OT I was watching video clips one Aaron Ruper’s feed. One had closed captions on and spelled Ron DeSantis’ name Ronny Santos.
It’s perfect, since both George and Ronny are phonies.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: While I am sure you are mostly correct, I also see this eruption as a form of denial over the future of the electoral prospects of the Republican Party, but especially in places like Arizona, and the idea that they might have to change ideas and platforms to attract a changing electorate.
eclare
@Roger Moore: My 93 yo aunt is an old school Republican who voted twice for TFG, but she believes in truth, and she called to congratulate me when Joe won. She recently told me if it’s Joe vs TFG, she’ll vote Joe. That won’t matter here in TN, but it might in other states.
frosty
Tabs open for 3 or 4 weeks?? So you never shut the computer off?
Betty Cracker
@eclare: No disrespect to your aunt, but I don’t understand how someone can simultaneously value truth and vote for a pathological liar twice. (Got lots of Trumper relatives myself, so this brand of cognitive dissonance isn’t new to me but remains puzzling…)
WaterGirl
@frosty: Mostly I just put my laptop to sleep. Even if I turn it off, Safari will reopen with the tabs I have open.
Baud
Something none of the GOP Trump critics, including Pence, can do when it comes to the presidency.
WaterGirl
I can’t believe these entitled pricks go to jail, and then are surprised by the shitty conditions. I suppose that like everything else, it’s shitty conditions for thee, but not for me.
eclare
@Betty Cracker: Trust me, I know. She is one of my few remaining relatives and would do anything for me, though, so whatcha gonna do?
And although she watches Bret Baier, she does not watch Tuckems, Hannity, etc. I don’t know if I could take that.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
That judge is a Trump judge too.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Most of the GOP Trump critics have no sense of honor or duty. It’s not just party of country, it’s power over everything.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Some of the Trump judges seem to still value the law over party and power. Some.
Dangerman
@WaterGirl: It’s pure denialism in action. A long time ago, there was some subset of dinosaurs that said “oh, look at the pretty meteor”. Probably not a good example since that had a bad ending for all of them.
Almost Retired
Fontes is impressive. He’s been great as an occasional guest on cable news. Also in his interactions in the local press when I’ve been in Arizona. Wish Gallegos had his on camera presence, but he’s getting there and has time to improve. I am not yet convinced that Arizona has gone sane yet or that Kari Lake has been vanquished. I suspect she’s stocking up on Vaseline for the camera lens when she runs for Senate.
WaterGirl
@Almost Retired: It’s petty to say, but she will need even more vaseline in 2 years than she needed in 2022.
Steeplejack
@frosty:
My browsers (Firefox on Win10, Samsung browser and Brave on Android) will preserve multiple tabs when the browsers are shut down and reopened. Dunno if that’s the default or if it has to be set as an option.
BlueGuitarist
@Geminid:
fontes has a righteous explanation of the meaning of the second amendment in the context of Article 1 section 8 clauses 15 and 16 of the Constitution and his experience as a marksmanship (is there a gender neutral term?) instructor:
https://youtu.be/MKrFQVuB1iU
eta: debunking the bs about militia, criticizing 2 democrats And All Republicans, the kind of thing that should be way more widely known, effectively delivered imho
zhena gogolia
@Almost Retired: I love that when she was voted the favorite VP pick at CPAC her office said she was flattered but she couldn’t serve as governor and VP at the same time.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: For real? Does she really believe she is governor? Yikes.
Betty Cracker
@eclare: I understand completely. Almost all of my elders are Fox News-addled dopes who love Trump AND DeSantis, which is appalling and inexcusable. But they love me, and I love them, as irritating as we all find each other. 🙄 My husband’s family are good old upstate NY pro-labor Democrats, thank dog!
azlib
Remember the alternative to Fontes was election denier Finchem. Richer has been a sane voice. In fact the whole Maricopa County Board of Supervisors with 4 Republicans and 1 Democrat have been a sane voice with all the election nonsense here in AZ.
We even have a few sane Republicans in the Senate here. Four of them rejected a bill to break up Maricopa County into 4 counties. The bill was payback for the Supervisors not feeding the election fraud nonsense.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I saw it on Colbert. Here’s what I find on google:
Mai Naem mobile
@WaterGirl: yes Kari really does believe she won and is like some third world leader exiled in a coup. She’s kooky coco puffs. I’ve known a few people who’ve called down the qanon rabbit hole and she’s like them.
zhena gogolia
SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO DO THE NEW YORK TIMES CRYPTO
But I can’t believe their attitude has seeped into the word games. Today’s crypto:
“Linguistic peculiarities department: A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.”
FU, NYT
Bupalos
@Betty Cracker: the dude’s a conman running the old “quick! duck in this alley and I’ll protect you from the mugger” con. People fall for it, especially people who are already compromised and frightened.
The internet is creating a highly sorted citizenry that sits around opining about how unimaginably horrible everyone else is, and eroding public trust. Lots of Trumpers are otherwise decent folk who have been malformed by a culture and education system we haven’t done enough to improve.
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: wow, that’s such a great video. I have added that for a post tomorrow.
Mai Naem mobile
I really like Fontes. He can’t do it now and it’s too far in the future to look towards but Joe Biden would be doing Arizona a huge favor if he appointed Katie Hobbs to something during his 2nd term and Fontes got to take over as governor*.
*I think AZ may have a lieutenant governor by then so this may not apply.
WaterGirl
@Bupalos: First I’m gonna scare you. Then only I can save you, only I can fake protect you. You need me.
Create the problem, and let them think you’re the only solution.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
I would put it a little differently. I think they fundamentally recognize their ideas are losing popularity. They wouldn’t be trying to cheat if they thought they could win fairly. The fascist wing of the party are the ones who think it’s more important to get their way than to have free and fair elections. The remainder of the party are a mix. Some of them are willing to give up on some facet of the party platform to try to win, and some of them still want to stick to the platform but think they’ll get their turn to implement it once the Democrats show their asses and lose.
I guess some of them also want to implement the platform and think they can weasel their way to a victory by lying about their goals. That group is less significant, though, because this is obviously a very limited strategy. It’s hard to win reelection when you have a track record of doing stuff the electorate doesn’t like, though people like Glenn Youngkin have shown it can be effective as a short-term approach.
Bupalos
@WaterGirl: and a lot of them were already running pell-mell down the street from fear of modernity.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t think I’m a terrible person, but maybe I am. I have cut every Trumper, relative or friend/acquaintance out of my life. And I’m ruthless about it. My MAGA cousin, with whom I was close as a child, became a non-person to me once I found out. She recently died and I skipped her funeral. And I just don’t care if anyone finds that harsh. I have a few other cousins I’ve stopped communicating with and I don’t care about them either. Thankfully, no one in my immediate family is that awful and stupid. We are all staunch Dems.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I can kind of understand that. It’s hard to go against your party’s nominee for the most important office while maintaining your status as a party member in good standing. You can vote against some candidate for a lower office on the grounds they’re manifestly unfit, but when you do it for the presidential candidate you have to start questioning if the party is right for you. I think most of the Republicans who voted against Trump are now former Republicans.
azlib
@WaterGirl: I am not sure Kari actually believes she won the election. I think she is auditioning for the VP slot on Trump’s ticket. Personally, I think her act is just a grift to extract more dollars from the rubes.
Kirk
@WaterGirl: I keep recalling that a common Republican behavior is to deny a problem exists until it becomes personal, and if sufficient quantity of Republicans suffer the problem then of course they’re on board with getting it fixed.
In this case, jail and prison reform has long been an issue needing doing that has been dismissed by the right. I’m wondering if we’re finally going to see movement on this issue from that side supporting the push on the left.
billcinsd
@eclare: How many states does your aunt vote in?
eclare
@billcinsd: Hahaha…
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
They liked/believed the sales pitch. Likely didn’t didn’t dig a lot farther. If they have been republicans for decades, and I can see a lot of people could be, mainly because they at most hit the high notes of a campaign, especially the very older crowd. As an old fart myself I remember campaign commercials from long ago and they didn’t sound like the rantings of a moron on cocaine and hash. Not saying they were good, truthful, rational, realistic but at least most of them weren’t so bombastic and bullshit as many we see today. I’d bet many republican politicians and their campaign managers are relatively nutso now and their commercials are forgotten about 3 seconds after they are aired and people vote the same way they have for decades. And a lot of that in more rural areas are that they don’t get the exposure that those of us in more heavily populated areas do of sane and insane political points of view, which makes the insane far more obvious.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Probably a single issue one of some type who has actual insurrection as the red line.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: I admire her attention to details.
artem1s
@Roger Moore:
the fracture is self serving. If the MAGAt GOPers get their wish and overturn an election for TFG, how can the other GOP candidates legitimately claim the fraud didn’t happen all the way down the ballot? None of them are willing to underbus themselves just to appease TFG ego anymore.
WaterGirl
@Kirk: Fingers crossed.
WaterGirl
@Paul in KY: She is definitely all in on the con. Or she believes the con.
Roger Moore
@artem1s:
I agree some of it is self-serving, but not quite the way you suggest. After all, if there was fraud that kept Trump from winning, it was probably fraud across the board in favor of Democrats. That wouldn’t hurt Republicans who won with a fair vote count; it would just imply they won their elections by even more. The Republicans who have come out strongest against election conspiracy theories are the ones in charge of running elections, since those conspiracy theories necessarily suggest they were in on it.
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
I can’t speak to @eclare:’s aunt’s reasoning, but the Trumpsters in my family all freely acknowledge his dishonesty, corruption, and overall loathsome character. They justify their votes for him solely with their hatred of Democrats and all who vote for Democrats. This was especially the case with Hillary Clinton, who they all insist is the most evil & horrible person they’ve ever heard of.
James E Powell
@WaterGirl:
Side question on the proud boys trials. Why are they all doing bench trials? Wouldn’t they stand a better chance of getting a hung jury? It only takes one.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: What Charlie Pierce calls the “prion disease” of wingnuttery has left untold personal relationship carnage in its wake. We don’t talk about it all that much because the actual carnage is both more lamentable and newsworthy, but it’s a thing.
I am a judgmental person, but I don’t presume to judge how other folks deal with that in their lives. For me, I think of it in terms of how I’d respond if my child committed a terrible crime — unconditional love but not blindness to the implications of the offense, the suffering of the victims, and what that says about the offender.
Geminid
@James E Powell: I think the defense attorneys figured that DC juries would be generally unsympathetic if not hostile to their clients.
Geminid
@James E Powell: That’s why the few Trump voters I know voted the way they did. They did not like Trump, but had bought into the idea that the Democrats are a radical and dangerous party. The dynamic of “negative partisanship” was at play.
That’s really the best thing Republicans have going for them now. Sometimes I think it’s the only thing.
Roger Moore
@James E Powell:
They’re a bunch of racist fucks who would rather have a trial before a White judge than a jury that might be mostly Black.
WaterGirl
@James E Powell: I have heard the reason why discussed on one of the podcasts I listen to, but I don’t recall which one. The reason they gave made sense to me at the time, though I’m sure that’s no help!
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: Sad, but probably true.
Barry
@artem1s: “the fracture is self serving. If the MAGAt GOPers get their wish and overturn an election for TFG, how can the other GOP candidates legitimately claim the fraud didn’t happen all the way down the ballot? None of them are willing to underbus themselves just to appease TFG ego anymore.”
Note that in Arizona, they are doing just that, claiming that Biden’s election is fraudulent, but that *theirs* is just fine.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: She’s a pro newsreader. She can spout off anything with a straight face.