State Senate President Tim Bee is close to setting up an exploratory committee for the CD-8 seat according to a story by Daniel Scarpinato of the Star.
Word is that Meg Econ will be working on the campaign. Meg was last seen heading up the successful Southern Arizona operation for U.S. Senator Jon Kyl. Meg has excellent contacts within the party from her efforts in 2006 and previous campaigns. Bee’s seriousness is demonstrated by the presence of such a quality campaign worker.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Tim Bee update.
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13 comments:
Remember, you read it here first! :)
3-4 months ago this was news
Thinkright posted over at my place that Bee will serve out his term. If he serves out his term, we're talking May or June of 2008?
What say the folks here? How in the world can he wait that long? I don't understand such calculations.
Big mistake on Tim's part.
The Dems and Janet will ensure he's tied up in Phoenix until the end of June. The honeymoon from this past session will be over as the Dems circle the wagons to protect Gabby; they'll paint Tim as something he's not by tossing all sorts of "touchy feely" legislation that sounds good emotionally but is fiscally unsound or just plain stupid to enact.
When Tim shoots it down, kills it in committee or just leads the charge to defeat it, that'll give Gabby the red meat she needs for her negative ad blitz.
Tim needs to resign on the high note of "bipartisanship" that he forged in the last session.
Tim needs to show the people of CD8 that he's committed to running; committed to winning.
He needs to raise a bunch of cash; at least dollar for dollar as much as Gabby, if not more.
No matter what anyone says, he can't do that effectively while stuck in Phoenix and there's not a lot of time between June 30th and November 6th 2008. That's just 4 months to aggressively campaign.
Hopefully he'll wake up after the 1st of January and step down from the State Senate and step up to taking on Gabby.
Tim has a lot of work ahead of him for Southern Arizona. We may never have another Senate President from here again.
Thanks, Duke.
Your remarks match my sense of things. Time will tell.
Thinkright,
You may be right, but after next year Tim is out on his butt anyway, if he beats Gabby, he can do a hell of a lot more for Southern Arizona for a hell of a lot longer.
If you do a simple Cost-Benefit Analysis of his choices, there is no way it makes sense to ride out another session in the legislature.
Also, statistically, it takes a solid year of hard campaigning and fundraising to defeat an incumbent. His odds of beating her with a 4-5 month campaign are slim to none.
The folks up in DC that Tim needs to support his race, if he is to win, want to see him commit.
The RNC, NRCC and other national pro-GOP groups will not squander their money and support on another half-assed CD8 GOP run.
Tim also needs to show the grass roots, the GOP establishment and the business community that he intends to give the CD 8 race 110%.
If he fails to do that he'll get little moral or financial support and may even encourage another GOP candidate to enter the race totally screwing up any chance of the GOP getting the seat back.
Contrary to the local GOP establishment’s popular belief, they alone can't secure a Bee victory.
Meg Econ and the rest of Tim's potential campaign staff had better bury the hatchet, dump the snobby know it all attitudes and quit holding a grudge over what happened to Huffman last year and reach out to the grass roots (future worker bees) real fast.
Tim also needs to vet the advice he gets from these so called “insiders” as well and start listening to many of the GOP faithful in CD8 that want him to “poop or get off the pot” so they can line up behind him or so they can find someone else serious about taking on Gabby.
Duke,
Meg worked on the Kyl campaign in 2006 and didn't have anything to do with Huffman/Graf. I'm not sure what you mean about burying the hatchet or holding a grudge...or snobby know it all attitude...her guy, Jon Kyl won?? She was succesful in her job and happy about it.
Anyway, enjoy the rain today, it's raining cats & dogs.
hey AZ 8th, disconnected that "word verification", it is a pain, you just go to dashboard & settings & it is easy to ditch.
Duke,
I totally concur wtih your analysis. Having worked on a lot of congressional campaigns over the years, I see this race as a challenging one. Although Giffords is certainly vulnerable, taking her out will not be a cake walk. Bee can't afford to make a mistake in this race. If he isn't beginning to campaign seriously early in '08, he will be in serious trouble.
Tim (& Meg) have won a bunch of campaigns (General Elections) and Tim has worked on his brother's over the years. Not only is Tim savy, he knows what he is doing, has experience in winning campaigns and is the party's only chance at defeating Gabby.
I know AZ Ace & Duke are just as stubborn in their beliefs as I am. So, we'll see how things play out.
TR
I'm happy to be wrong about what it takes to beat an incumbent and see Bee come out on top. At the same time, I'll be shocked if he doesn't announce in January as Framer suggests.
TR,
We need to be a bit realistic here. Tim won those elections for a seat he inherited from his brother, in a heavily Republican district, with little to no opposition. It's going to be a lot different running in an area (CD 8) 5 times the size of LD 30.
As far as my comments on Meg, I was referring to her short tenure as Pima County GOP Vice Chair, the contentiousness of her election to that office and her attitude toward the gals from Green Valley.
Then there were comments after the Lisa James defeat by Randy Pullen. You never know who might be listening and you better be careful what you’re saying; especially if you plan on running someone’s campaign that will need every single vote in order to win.
Duke stole my thunder for sure. Well said.
I was going to ask if Tim Bee has ever faced a real challenge in an election before. He is really used to people fawing over him to some respect and how he took the beating from the right was pretty interesting in this last session. We'll see what happens when the Democrats reveal some of his extreme right positions.
I was also going to ask about how hard it is to run an incumbent Senate campaign of someone of the stature of Jon Kyl. The one thing I can say for that race is that Pederson was nowhere in Pima...but I wonder if that was him being a poor candidate and not anything that the Kyl campaign really did right. I will say that "tested" is "tested" though and she has the experience that our poster here says she has. Nothing to underestimate.
The one thing I can say about him staying in the Senate is this. He has a very very conservative record that will be easy to beat him up on. It will be enough to question rightly who he is and whether he has enough of it to unseat an incumbent that is frankly doing a pretty damned good job.
By staying in the Senate, and not having to face a primary challenge, he can take on his party, look like a compromiser, and "moderate" his image for the incumbents in this district.
Finally, if Tim Bee runs against the war in Iraq...
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