The Range

Big Mac Attack

Despite opposition from the GOP's über-ultra-radical-extreme-o conservative wing, Arizona Sen. John McCain's dazzling Super Tuesday performance knocked rival Mitt Romney right out of the presidential race. With Mitt's announcement that "I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country," only Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul stand between John McCain and the GOP presidential nomination.

Shortly after Romney suspended his campaign, McCain told a crowd of his critics at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee convention: "All I ask of any American, conservative, moderate, independent or enlightened Democrat, is to judge my record as a whole, and accept that I am not in the habit of making promises to my country that I do not intend to keep. I hope I have proven that in my life, even to my critics. Then vote for or against me based on that record, my qualifications for the office and the direction where I plainly state I intend to lead our country."

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama in Arizona, winning 51 percent of the vote to Obama's 42 percent. The nationwide race between the two Democrats remains tight.


Project White House: The Aftermath

Speaking of the presidential race: Sandy Whitehouse had the best performance of the Project White House candidates, landing a grand total of 613 votes as of Tuesday, Feb. 12. (A small percentage of Arizona's votes had not yet been posted.) Whitehouse outpolled both Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (who got 470 votes) and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel (who got 325 votes).

Gravel was the only so-called "mainstream candidate" who took an interest in Project White House after the Weekly sent a final invite in December to every candidate who made the ballot. In a brief conversation, a member of Gravel's campaign expressed concern that the Project White House candidates were too "low-tier" for Gravel to associate himself with.

Whitehouse also dominated in the Kids Voting program, getting 991 votes from Arizona schoolchildren and beating out Democrat John Edwards, who got only 754 votes. In other Kids Voting results: Obama got 34,198 votes; Clinton got 20,886 votes; and McCain got 15,491 votes. Looks like the Republicans are losing the hearts and minds of our schoolchildren!

Getting back to the Election Day results: The Weekly's endorsed Democrat, Chuck See, got only 241 votes.

The vote tally among the other Democrats in Project White House: Edward Dobson, 380; Richard Grayson, 310; Karl Krueger, 282; William Campbell, 241; Frank Lynch, 240; Doctress Neutopia (aka Libby Hubbard), 200; Michael Oatman, 181; Rich Lee, 160; Peter "Simon" Bollander, 150; Tish Haymer, 104; Orion Karl Daley, 93; and Leland Montell, 89.

On the Republican side, the top vote-getter among PWH candidates was Tucsonan John McGrath, who got 468 votes. Given that McGrath's campaign was under the radar for most of January, we'd credit his strong showing to the fact that his name sounds remarkably like "John McCain."

The Weekly's endorsed Republican, Sean "CF" Murphy, got just 255 votes, which put him in third place among PWH's GOP candidates.

The other Republicans: Frank McEnulty, 315; James Mitchell, 187; David Ruben, 102; Michael Shaw, 62; Bob Forthan, 74; Rick Outzen, 51; Charles Skelley, 47; and Rhett Smith, 40.

Concession speeches from the candidates can be found at blog.tucsonweekly.com.


Poet Power

Tucson Weekly staff writer Mari Herreras recently reported that the notorious Mexican flag-burner, Roy Warden, has taken to showing up Wednesday afternoons at a downtown farmers' market to annoy people by projecting his bullshit through a bullhorn and threatening to make Stone Avenue run red with blood, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Last week, a group of young women in the Grrrls Literary Activist Project, an afterschool poetry program run by Kore Press, showed up on Wednesday afternoon (Feb. 6) to counter Warden's tantrums with poems, cookies and hugs.

"Most of these girls go to City High, so they are right around the corner from this anti-immigrant protester, and they are really disturbed by his presence here," Kore Press executive director Shannon Cain told Range correspondent Taylor Avey, who showed up to see what would happen when Warden met up with the young poets and their instruments of love.

However, Warden decided to take the week off, leaving the girls to hand out their cookies in peace and quiet--a welcome change for the typical downtown dweller.

As of the Weekly's press deadline, The Range had no word on whether the girls returned this week, although Warden had announced that he would be back on duty. What an asshat.


County Bloodbath

With an impending budget crunch, County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry warned county departments last week that the 2 percent budget-reduction request first announced in January will need to be greater, reports Range county correspondent Mari Herreras.

Employees are especially nervous in Development Services, which has been told to prepare for layoffs after Huckelberry turned down director Carmine DeBonis' suggestion for a hiring freeze and a streamlined process for permit approval.