J.D. Hayworth

Protect Arizona's Freedoms (PAF), a group chaired by state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Phoenix) that opposes the anti-affirmative action Arizona Civil Rights Initiative, has vowed to fight on in its quest to keep the initiative off the ballot.

Sarah Luna, the group's communications manager, said that PAF plans to sort through the signatures on the ACRI petitions and look for a basis on which to challenge the proposed amendment to the Arizona constitution.

"It's a time intensive process," said Luna. "Depending on what we find, that'll determine what the appropriate legal action would be."

The Arizona Democratic Party admits it sent an employee to track attendees of a private fundraiser for 5th Congressional District Republican candidate Laura Knaperek, after the incident was exposed on the J.D. Hayworth Show.

Lauren Barnett, Knaperek's campaign manager, decried the incident Wednesday on the KFYI program of former congressman J.D. Hayworth, who was defeated as an incumbent by Harry Mitchell. According to Barnett, guests at a Knaperek fundraising event noticed a man taking pictures of people coming and going and the license plates of vehicles parked outside. The Knaperek campaign asked him who he was, and he told them his name was David Judd, and he worked for the Arizona Democratic Party.

"This is undemocratic, this is reprehensible. What ever happened to freedom of association?" asked Barnett on Hayworth's show.

Emily DeRose, spokeswoman for the Arizona Democratic Party, said she doesn't see anything undemocratic or reprehensible about the Democrats keeping tabs on their opponents. 

"Of course we keep track of what Rep. Mitchell's opponents are saying and doing," said DeRose. "It's part of our due diligence as they run for office."

Sen. John McCain's involvement in a land deal between the federal government and a company whose principals have helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for him is the subject of a USA Today report out this morning. Yet McCain wasn't the only Arizona politician who supported the deal, according to a McCain spokesman, nor was he the only one who received financial backing from the company in question.

According to the story, McCain was instrumental in securing the acquisition of several hundred acres surrounding Luke Air Force Base from SunCor in 2003. SunCor's parent company, Pinnacle West, and its executives are major contributors to McCain, and the story indicates that McCain relaxed his "no pork" stance by appropriating the funds for the land purchase.

What the USA Today article failed to mention, according to a McCain spokesman, is that the deal was supported by the entirety of Arizona's congressional delegation - many of whom also count Pinnacle West and its officers among their top contributors.

Sydney Hay has heard it all, she is too conservative, she can’t raise the money, she won’t be able to attract Independent voters, she won’t be able to withstand the Republican establishment once they find a candidate.  Well here she is, almost certainly on her way to the Republican nomination in Arizona’s First Congressional District.

It was a fun notion that former Congressman J.D. Hayworth might enter the fight in CD1, a large portion of which he represented as the Fifth Congressional District before redistricting changed the map. However, the notion was brief. Today on his KFYI talk show former Congressman J.D. Hayworth definitively denied that he is running to replace Rep. Rick Renzi, leaving the field to Sydney Hay and Preston Korn.