Huppenthal went down in his primary, big time, to an unknown challenger, Diane Douglas. He might have lost anyway — Douglas has the right wing of the party sewn up, and they’re dependable primary voters — but there’s no question the size of his defeat can be attributed to Falcon 9 and Thucydides, Huppenthal’s online aliases — or, as he liked to call them, his “sway-do-nyms.”
Give the blogs, specifically Blog for Arizona, the credit. My old stomping ground did the research, wrote the stories and gave it to the mainstream media, which gobbled it up with more gusto than any of us who were involved in the story expected. Whenever Huppenthal’s name was mentioned after his aliases were unmasked, Falcon 9, Thucydides and the Greatest Hits from their Comments List were never far behind. Give the major chunk of the credit to Bob Lord, whose perseverance led to uncovering Huppenthal as the phantom commenter, pulling all the pieces together and putting it out in the public eye. If he hadn’t led the effort, it likely wouldn’t have happened, and today we might have a strong candidate Huppenthal moving into the generals.
It doesn’t happen very often that a blog, especially one unaffiliated with a larger media outlet, creates news. But it goes to show that a good story is a good story no matter where it originates, and other outlets will pick it up, expand on it and make it their own if they can. Usually when that happens, they like to leave the name of the blog that created the story in the shadows, but in this case, that was impossible, since the blogs themselves were at the center of the story.
Also unusual is that as the story developed, it became a bipartisan blogging effort. Blogs on the right, Seeing AZ Red, Sonoran Alliance and Espresso Pundit, joined in the fun, pulling out comments Huppenthal wrote on their blogs, as did Three Sonorans on the left. Both sides share a dislike for Huppenthal, which created a rare kumbaya moment for blogs which are usually on opposite sides of every issue. Now the group hug is over, of course, and things will return to normal. The blogs on the right will attack Democratic candidate David Garcia and those on the left will go after Republican candidate Diane Douglas, with blogs swapping occasional snipes and insults at one another.
The Huppenthal story put Blog for Arizona on more people’s radar, which is a good thing. Its ten contributors, some regular, some occasional, add to the general social and political discussion of issues local, state and national and, as is typical of good blogs including this one, bring up subjects which the mainstream media gloss over or miss completely. And it gave a good name to us bloggers scribbling in semi-obscurity, often purely for the pleasure of getting our ideas and our words out there and finding an audience which takes the time to read what we have to say. We’re always happy to be acknowledged and become part of the general conversation.
This article appears in Aug 21-27, 2014.
Right on, David and Blog for Arizona. Its a good day for Arizona when two, count ’em TWO bad guys go down at once, and in this case, they rose as a twosome and they went down as a twosome. They fueled their last campaigns with whipped up hatred and the illegitimate destruction of a terrific program, Mexican American Studies, in TUSD. I, for one, am not sorry to see their political careers go up in flames.
Good job David and Blog for Arizona–its a good day for Arizona when two, count ’em TWO bad guys go down at once. In this case, tweedledee and tweedledum rose together on a wave of hatred and bigotry that they created over the Mexican American Studies program. The wave crested with the illegitimate destruction of that program. I, for one, am not sorry to see their respective political careers end in the flames of OUTed bigotry and abject corruption–
Might wanna leave off the back-patting, Hupp was a Common Core kill. All his online foibles did was increase the margin.
It’s GOP fatigue. It’s contagious.
Several people have come up to me (as a fellow blogger) and thanked Blog for Arizona for exposing Huppenthal. Congrats to Phoenix attorney Bob Lord for breaking the story.
Great work.
Huppenthal’s unethical racist behavior contributed to his defeat, but he lost primarily because he sold his soul to the Common Core and could never get it back, no matter how many times he told different audiences what he thought they wanted to hear. Voters did not care very much what candidates for governor or attorney general thought about the Common Core, but they sure thought about what the candidates for Superintendent of Public Instruction thought about it.
Marty is correct. Diane Douglas, a school board member from one of the state’s largest districts, was hardly unknown. She had a carefully crafted message against the common core and hammered it over and over and over. The blogging business put blood in the water and would have hurt Huppenthal in the general election, but in the primary it was mainly the common core and PARCC that doomed him. (I bet money on his loss a month or two ago, because it seemed a pretty safe bet.)
It’s hard to resist this political post mortem, so I won’t. Do people really think so little of Republican primary voters as to believe they were unmoved by a public official who is thoroughly and uncontrovertedly shamed by revealing himself to be unfit for his office? (Hint: ask Tom Horne.) Had it not been for outing Huppenthal’s blog comments, it is entirely possible that Hupp would have squeaked by this one.
For the last couple of years the anti-CC sentiment has gained traction across the country, but I thought it was too much to hope for that Arizonans would catch on and challenge Hupp’s support. While a significant portion of the Republican base is now rabidly opposed to what they refer to as the “Obamanization” of public schools, there are plenty of others who don’t know about the CC, don’t know about the CC kerfluffle, and/or take Tea Party rants with a grain of salt. Add to that the independent vote and Hupp’s name recognition as an incumbent and I would have given him a good chance of getting through the primary.
But how many of that group saw Hupp blubbering on national TV? How many of them lifted their jaws off the ground when his hateful comments were broadcast over and over? Throw into that mix a lot of disgust with Tom Horne disgracing his office and I think you have the tipping point for a large block of voters who want to vote for someone with integrity.
As Mark said, the blogging put blood in the water. But it is entirely possible that the blood in the water is what doomed Huppenthal and that he would be facing off with David Garcia right now if Bob Lord hadn’t done the lord’s work.
I agree with Jana. The part of the right wing that swears by Fox and the viral emails littering their mailboxes were ready to vote for Douglas, but I don’t know if their numbers were big enough to catapult an unknown (to most Arizonans) over the incumbent. I hang out with enough non-politicos to know that most of them didn’t know the names of anyone running for Ed Supe but Huppenthal. The Rs who don’t follow elections closely would have voted for Hupp under normal circumstances. But I’m betting his shameful and embarrassing behavior led some of them to vote for “the other candidate” and others to leave that race blank. Remember, two former Republican Ed Supes said he should either resign or pull out of the race, and some business types said the same. That’s powerful stuff to see in the news. Even casual voters would have winced at what they saw and read.
It is interesting that former Superintendent, Lisa Graham Keegan, also came from Peoria. After the bad news finally hit the mainstream press regarding Huppenthal, Keegan came out strongly against him. Keegan new the right-wing could lose if Huppenthal won the primary. Millions of right-wing dollars, and much of the mainstream media, will now go for Douglas.
Now, here is the challenge bloggers who care about education: get people registered to vote in November, get them to vote, and get the voters to vote for David Garcia.
The trouble that I see with Diane Douglas is that she is a one trick pony. Her continuing mantra is, “Defeat Common Core”. Ok, fine, now what. How are we going to fund education in this State? How are we going to get more resources into the public classroom? Where is Diane on vouchers? So far there has been no platform on which to evaluate what she wants to do. Her win was more anti-Huppenthal than pro-Diane.
I’m voting for Garcia, he at least has a background in education though as a Dem in a red state, it’s doubtful that he will be heard by the 90 gnomes