Last month, the political news had Arizona Democrats asking themselves a couple of natural questions.
Who is Kelly Fryer, and why is she running for governor?
For months, the Democratic race for governor had two relatively well-known and, within the party, respected candidates: Sen. Steve Farley and David Garcia. Then Fryer jumped in.
To find out some answers, I attended a Fryer meet-and-greet Monday at Tap and Bottle, a bar and beer shop near downtown. Since 2013, Fryer, 56, has been the head of Southern Arizona’s YWCA, an organization that focuses on efforts to help women through business and workforce training, among other activities. Its slogan is “Eliminating racism, empowering women.”
She’s on a six-month paid sabbatical while she runs for office and later will eventually have to take a leave of absence, she said.
“There are a bunch of things that differentiate me from Dave and Steve,” Fryer told me. “First of all, I’m a woman. What that means is I see things in a different way. I have a different perspective because of that.”
She went on to give an example of the kind of issue she says her perspective as a woman and “member of a marginalized community” — she is gay and married — gives her special insight into: The proposed ban on texting while driving that Farley has been proposing for years in the Legislature.
“I know that this probably seems like a really good idea. Nobody thinks people should be texting while driving,” she said. But she disagrees with the proposal.
“What this law will do is it will give the police yet another reason to pull people over. We know that our criminal justice system has a racial bias built into it. Every single study shows that. Until we are able to eliminate racism in our criminal justice system, we should not pass one more law to create one more crime.”
Fryer also told me she is planning a campaign focused on Arizona’s left-behind places — towns like Sells and Ajo as well as marginalized urban neighborhoods. She and her wife, Tana, moved to Bisbee last year but retain an apartment in Tucson, she said.
Her idea is that since Gov. Doug Ducey has such a massive advantage in campaign fundraising, a winning Democrat would have to be a nontraditional candidate — an “insurgent.”
To win that way, she said, she’ll need to activate people who haven’t voted in previous elections. For me, that strategy had a familiar ring to it. Garcia told me last year his only viable path to victory depends on much the same concept — motivating more non-voters to get out and vote.
Fryer’s candidacy potentially helps Garcia, who is from the Phoenix area and ran unsuccessfully for state superintendent of public instruction in 2014. To the extent she wins votes in Southern Arizona, that likely takes them away from Farley, whose home base is, of course, in the Tucson area.
Farley sees the race quite differently than she does, not as favoring an insurgent but as favoring someone who’s shown competence inside the system.
“I feel like this is a time right now when the electorate wants someone who has experience governing and has shown they can win,” he told me. “I’m going to be able to govern from Day 1.”
Whoever wins, Fryer said she’ll support the Democratic victor.
McCain still out
Sen. John McCain had hoped to be back at the U.S. Senate in January. Now, though, there is no known timeline for his return.
I checked in with his office this week and got no response. McCain remains here in Arizona, recovering from injuries to his Achilles tendons as well as receiving treatment for his brain cancer.
The most detailed recent update on him came in a Feb. 7 interview his daughter, Meghan McCain, gave to a Politico podcast.
“He’s doing well,” she said. “I think it’s a very high likelihood he’ll come back to D.C. at some point. Part of the problem too is that it’s this deadly crazy flu season. His immune system is so down that everyone’s worried about him getting the flu.”
“Mentally he’s 100 percent there,” she said, but she said he’s still physically worn down by the treatment and his injuries.
Kelli Ward, who challenged McCain in his last race and is running for Senate now, has said that if he can’t serve he should step down. Her comments were graceless and crude. But she’s not all wrong.
We in Arizona are down to one senator while McCain is out. We do, I think, owe him some respect and deference because of his long service. But at some point soon, McCain should take a hard look at whether he’ll ever be able to serve again.
The important date to keep in mind is May 30. If he were to resign after that date, then the election to replace him wouldn’t take place till 2020. So, we need to know before then, hopefully well before, if he’s going to step down.
A long way to go
Democrats have been enjoying the free-for-all in Congressional District 8, where Republican primary candidates have been tearing each other to shreds in the race to replace resigned Rep. Trent Franks. The West Valley district gives Republicans a big registration advantage, but they’re thinking one of the Democratic primary candidates, Brianna Westbrook or the one long considered the leader, Dr. Hiral Tipirneni, may have a chance.
I’ve been waiting to say this, and now the vain hopes of CD8 Democrats have given me a chance:
It’s a long way to Tirpirneni.
If you’re a subscriber to the Star’s print edition, as opposed to an online reader, you’re more likely to be old enough to get the reference. Every time I hear the doctor’s name, I think of the World War I-era song that used to be so well known: “It’s a long way to Tipperary.”
Too bad for her, the chorus probably does not make it a good campaign song:
It’s a long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long way to go.
It’s a long way to Tipperary,
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square!
It’s a long long way to Tipperary,
But my heart’s right there.
