More great news for Somos-endorsed Rocky Chavez, San Diego City Beat endorsed him

More great news for Somos-endorsed Rocky Chavez, San Diego City Beat endorsed him. Citing “his commitment to reaching across the aisle to tackle issues such as homelessness, environmental protection and the arts.”

Writer Dave Maass spoke to Ryan Trabuco  today and said their endorsement was based largely on a post he had written on a local blog about one of Rocky’s opponents having a deep connection to Donald Kenney — a former AZ legislator convicted on bribery charges. Good stuff!

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-10537-our-june-5-election-endorsements-are-here_.html

All three candidates in the 76th District are Republicans. Carlsbad City Councilmember Farrah Douglas’ close ties to a corrupt former Arizona legislator, whom U-T San Diego recently found operating a dubious realty business, has us worried. Meanwhile, Sherry Hodges has indicated that she believes that climate change is a myth, a non-starter for us. We endorse Rocky Chavez, who demonstrates a commitment to reaching across the aisle to tackle issues such as homelessness, environmental protection and the arts. A former Oceanside City Council member, Chavez also served as undersecretary of the California Department of Veterans Affairs—he’s well-suited to represent the district that covers Camp Pendleton.

Senator Dick Lugar will be remembered as standing on the “right side” in American history

Guestblogger – Hispanic Politico:

Senator Dick Lugar will be remembered as standing on the “right side” in American history

by Dee Dee Garcia Blase on May. 08, 2012, under 2012 Presidential elections, 2012 United states senate races, female-led political movement, Hispanic Latino Vote

The Tea Party extremists are revealing their game plan little by little.  They had their targets set on a fine statesman such as Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana.  Apparently Lugar was not extremist enough for them in much the same way the Tea Party supporters viewed Senator John McCain of Arizona when they backed JD Hayworth who was within 5 points of McCain at one time during the 2010 elections.

What was the difference?

Indiana Tequila Party Leader, Jose Alvarez: “One of the very few politicians I genuinely liked, and will always support, senate or no senate.” [With Senator Dick Lugar at 2012 Senate Campaign event.

The Latino population in Indiana is not as high as it is here in Arizona.  Mexican-American voters were the key swing vote for McCain that ultimately got him re-elected in the Senate preventing the Tea Party nativist JD Hayworth from winning that seat.  The same was true in the State of Nevada when Hispanics saved Senator Harry Reid’s position when Sharron Angle depicted Latinos as criminals.

Does this mean Latinos should never have tried to rock the Latino vote in the State of Indiana in support of Senator Lugar?

Never.

Latinos did the right thing in utilizing resources, talents and energy to support Senator in every way that we could.  We owed it to Lugar to give it our all because he voted for our youth via the DREAM Act.  The Democratic Senate Candidate via Joe Donnelly did not vote for the DREAM in 2010 as a Congressman, and now he is collateral damage to the Democratic Party for the upcoming 2012 Presidential elections as Latino leaders and immigration leaders become hawkish — particularly in key swing Presidential states.

Just as we viewed the dixiecrats during the Civil Rights era in American history, and Civil Rights Act supporters in the 1960′s … we will view Senator Lugar as one of the few and last Republican leaders who supported immigrant children youth and children in our current struggle and era.  Both Richard Mourdock and Congressman Joe Donnelly are the modern-day dixiecrats and both will be remembered as such as politicians continue to cast votes that are recorded and remembered by the fastest growing demographic in our Nation.

Senator Lugar will be remembered to Latinos as an amigo, because he was one of the few who had courage to do the right thing while the others cowardly demonized immigrants in December of 2010.

We want to thank Lugar from the bottom of our hearts.  And if he ever wants to run for the President of the United States of America, he will be remembered as an amigo that did not betray us or use us for political expediency when all others jumped on the bandwagon to demonize Latinos and immigrants.

The results from tonight’s Indiana race confirms one thing to us:  We must continue to focus on states with high Hispanic population where our political leverage is the best.

The Tea Party will ultimately be the demise of the GOP as the Republican Party has allowed Kris Kobach, the Heritage Foundation, American Works, Americans for Tax Reform to be the face of their Party.  The Party of “Hell No” can only get them so far and it is simply unreasonable to believe politicians cannot work from across the aisle.

Thank you, Senator Lugar.  You are the epitome of a boyscout.

Matthew Tully of Indystar.com said it best when he wrote:

For Sen. Richard Lugar, this isn’t the way it should have ended.

A revered and reasonable statesman shouldn’t lose in a low-turnout election marked by voter anger and non-voter apathy. His career shouldn’t end with an ineffective campaign that turned desperate and even sad in its final days. Most important, a lawmaker who spent decades diligently addressing big issues and tackling looming crises shouldn’t be treated as a pariah simply because he viewed the other side as fellow Americans, and not enemy combatants.

 

Senator Lugar recognized in American History as a true hero.

Fotos por Axel Hernández

Público que asistió al evento de “tequila party” en la primera fila vemos a los integrantes de Indiana’s Dream Initiative.

DeeDee Blase García, presidente y fundadora del National Tequila Party.

Javier Barrera, integrante del Latino Youth Collective de IUPUI. Explicando que un número no tiene que detenerte en tu sueño.

Tambien comparó la situacion de la gente indocumentada a la de la gente indigena en méxico, los cuales son rezagados de la sociedad.

Lugar GOTV Milestone Total volunteer calls made to date: 1,500,000 Hours left ’til victory: 31

Breaking News: Richard Mourdock Target Of Retired Indiana Cop’s Pay-To-Play Probe Request

From the HuffPo:

WASHINGTON — A retired Indiana state trooper has asked the Securities Exchange Commission to investigate whether state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, a candidate for Senate, broke pay-to-play rules in offering a contract to manage police pension money while he was raising campaign cash from Wall Street.

Mourdock, a favorite of the Tea Party, is leading incumbent Sen. Dick Lugar heading into Tuesday’s Republican primary, according to polls. But his campaign has struggled to raise money, and former state police 1st Sgt. Thomas Frailey told HuffPost that he had concerns about Mourdock seeking a hedge fund of funds manager for the Indiana State Police Pension Fund around the time he was holding a Manhattan fundraiser with representatives of the finance industry.

According to SEC regulations, financial advisers who get business from a pension fund are barred from contributing to the campaigns of politicians who have influence over which advisers are chosen.

In the case of the Indiana state police pension fund, Mourdock issued a request for proposals to manage some $50 million in February, setting a date to receive those proposals of March 2. HuffPost has obtained a copy of an invitation the campaign faxed on Feb. 16 for a March 6 fundraising lunch at the Lexington Avenue offices of NGN Capital in New York, hosted by Steve Forbes, Alfred Angelo and NGN Capital boss Ken Abramowitz.

A spokesman for the Indiana state treasurer’s office declined to release the names of the firms that had applied to manage the pension money. A selection was to be made by May 15.

Frailey, in his letter asking the SEC to look into the matter, notes that the unusual fax invitation played up Mourdock’s role as treasurer, “highlighting his position overseeing state funds.”

Retired Trooper Seeks SEC Probe of Richard Mourdock; Dems Will Make SEC Investigation an Issue

From Senator Lugar Campaign office:

Retired Trooper Seeks SEC Probe of Mourdock; Dems Will Make SEC

Investigation an Issue

Howey Politics Indiana

Daily Wire

May 7, 2012

A retired Indiana state trooper has asked the Securities Exchange Commission to investigate whether state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, a candidate for Senate, broke pay-to-play rules in offering a contract to manage police pension money while he was raising campaign cash from Wall Street (Huffington Post).

Mourdock, a favorite of the Tea Party, is leading incumbent Sen. Dick Lugar heading into Tuesday’s Republican primary, according to polls. But his campaign has struggled to raise money, and former state police 1st Sgt. Thomas Frailey told HuffPost that he had concerns about Mourdock seeking a hedge fund of funds manager for the Indiana State Police Pension Fund around the time he was holding a Manhattan fundraiser with representatives of the finance industry. According to SEC regulations, financial advisers who get business from a pension fund are barred from contributing to the campaigns of politicians who have influence over which advisers are chosen.

In the case of the Indiana state police pension fund, Mourdock issued a request for proposals to manage some $50 million in February, setting a date to receive those proposals of March 2. HuffPost has obtained a copy of an invitation the campaign faxed on Feb. 16 for a March 6 fundraising lunch at the Lexington Avenue offices of NGN Capital in New York, hosted by Steve Forbes, Alfred Angelo and NGN Capital boss Ken Abramowitz.

A spokesman for the Indiana state treasurer’s office declined to release the names of the firms that had applied to manage the pension money. A selection was to be made by May 15.

Frailey, in his letter asking the SEC to look into the matter, notes that the unusual fax invitation played up Mourdock’s role as treasurer, “highlighting his position overseeing state funds.” Tickets for the lunch went for $1,000, $2,500 and $5,000. According to federal campaign records, Mourdock raised more than $100,000 in the first quarter of 2012 from finance industry workers and their spouses, although it could not immediately be determined which donations came from that event.

…

“‘It appears to me that something wasn’t quite right,” Frailey said. “I don’t want to say too much. To be quite honest, I just want the SEC to look into this.” Frailey, who relies on his pension for income, said a friend in law enforcement brought the issue to his attention, and one thing in particular concerned him, beyond the timing. It was a sentence that appears to give Mourdock veto authority over the proposals.

“The award of any contract(s) or agreement(s) as a result of this [Broad Agency Announcement] shall be at the discretion of the Treasurer,” the request for proposals says. “Multiple contracts may be awarded to obtain all the necessary services; however, the Treasurer reserves the right to not award any contracts for the services reviewed.”

Said Frailey: “These investors, at the same time they have their investments in and it’s being considered, Mourdock has the sole discretion to strike anybody.” Frailey, an independent who used to register as a Republican, said he was aware his complaint comes at a sensitive moment, but he doesn’t plan to let the matter drop, even if Mourdock loses. “I just filed this,” he said. “I want the SEC to look into it.” “I was taking a serious look at this guy as an independent voter, and this creates doubt in my mind,” Frailey said.

…

During Sunday’s “Indiana Insiders” on WTHR-TV, host Kevin Rader asked Democratic strategist Robin Winston about the SEC pay-to-play issue facing Mourdock. “There’s some news at the last bit of this election cycle now about the Securities and Exchange Commission investigating Richard Mourdock – obviously that’s something Democrats will be watching if he should be the nominee,” Rader said. “Of course, it will come up as an issue in the fall – it will be investigated and discussed,” Winston responded.

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Indiana Hoosier Hispanic Members of Catholic Church Stumping for Senator Lugar

We hope we are sending a message to the Catholic Church leaders of Indiana … loud and clear that Latino members of the Catholic Church want Senator Lugar.  Joe Donnelly voted against our children in 2010.

Democrats will make SEC investigation an issue for Richard Mourdock

Indiana Senator Lugar in the lead by reputable polls

Indiana Senator Lugar in the lead by reputable polls:

Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan: The case for Senator Dick Lugar

The Case for Dick Lugar

by Peggy Noonan

Wall Street Journal

May 3, 2012

Let’s wade into an argument, and on what may well be the losing side.

The most recent polls suggest Dick Lugar, the senior U.S. senator from Indiana, first elected in 1976, is on track to lose his primary on Tuesday. I hope he doesn’t for a number of reasons but one big one: the Senate needs grown-ups. The entire American government needs grown-ups, from Capitol Hill to the White House to the executive agencies. This is no time to lose one.

What Washington needs is sober and responsible adults. We are as a nation in a moment of real peril, facing challenges that are going to become existential-maybe already are-if we don’t do something about them. We won’t be able to ignore them-an unsound tax system, increasing and highly ideological regulation, an entitlement system whose demands will crush our children-for long. So right now, and more than ever, we need mature folk involved in our governance, people for whom not everything is new. People who know how to do things, who began studying a complicated issue 25 years ago and have kept up, who know it backward and forward. People who know the ways of the chamber backward and forward, and who know how to talk across the aisle. There is value in experience, in accomplishment and expertise. There is value in the ability to take the long view, and do your best with modesty and with an eye toward all the big jumbly categories of America, which are not limited to “rightist” and “leftist.”

Mr. Lugar, ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee and a longtime leader on controlling nuclear proliferation, is a sober and genial fellow. He is a conservative, always has been. He is experiencing a challenge from the right. He’s been under fire, for instance, for voting for the confirmation of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. As a matter of form, policy and tradition he did the right thing. He also helped shepherd through the nomination of John Roberts as chief Justice. He did the right thing there, too. He firmly backed President Bush on Iraq until he came to have doubts about administration policy and execution, and when he’d thought it through he took to the floor of the senate to explain his thinking, and his break.

He is independent. That’s good, a plus: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment,” as Edmund Burke observed. Mr. Lugar has won the respect of Senate Democrats. That’s good, too. In the future, it may turn out at some moment to be crucial.

The general position of respect he holds in Washington is not new. I remember, in 1988, working for George H.W. Bush, who had just won his party’s nomination for the presidency. The Bush entourage was on Air Force Two, en route to Indiana, to celebrate the nominee for vice president, Dan Quayle. Mr. Quayle was a nice man and a capable politician, but he was young. He sat, in the vice president’s office on the plane, with Indiana’s other senator, Dick Lugar, grey even then. I remember looking from one to another and thinking, “Why him?” Why Quayle and not Lugar, so known and respected? I was not the only person thinking that, on the plane or in the press.

Mr. Lugar’s challenger, state treasurer Richard Mourdock, has mounted a tough and determined campaign. He is drawing the endorsements of what is, increasingly, the conservative establishment: FreedomWorks, the Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform. Sarah Palin supports him, as does Michele Bachmann.

Mr. Lugar seems to have only one bigfoot, Gov. Mitch Daniels, a man of sound, unshowy judgement whose presence in the presidential primaries would have left them less freaky and more satisfying.

If Mr. Lugar loses, the press will say the tea party did him in, that it’s all part of an “ideological purge,” it was the extremists versus the GOP establishment and the extremists won. This will be a partial misreading of the situation, but it will be repeated enough to damage the Republican brand, such as it is. In any case, if Mr. Lugar loses the enemies of the GOP will rejoice, because while it’s assumed that he would sail through a general election, Mr. Mourdock might struggle.

As for “the tea party,” it is good to remember it has blended into the Republican Party, as more or less its rightward edge, and in the blending saved the party. Republicans would have been nowhere if what’s called the tea party had gone third-party.

If Mr. Lugar loses on Tuesday it will likely be due to two things. The first is a number: 35. That’s how many years he’s been in the Senate, how many years he’s lived and worked primarily in the environs of Washington, not Indiana, where apparently he no longer has a home. That was a mistake. Thirty-five is a big number. Nonideological people might look at it and think, “It’s time for a change.”

The other reason is a fact. What fuels conservative frustration is not only legislation like ObamaCare and scandals like Solyndra, but a growing sense that for 40 years, members of the party have sent Republicans to Washington and Washington-its spending, its regulating, its demands-keeps getting worse, not better. How could this be? It’s not just that Democrats have their Democratic ways, it’s that the Republicans they’ve sent haven’t waged a good enough fight. Everything bad there happened while they were there. So-tear it all down, remove everyone and start over.

This is a hard argument to counter because there is some truth in it. No matter who you send, Washington keeps growing. But Mr. Lugar remains as what he is, exceptional, and in his case there are many factors. He’s fought many fights to keep bad policy from being imposed. (Unfortunately, there’s never a memorial to the bad bill that didn’t happen.) He’s waded into serious policy issues, such as disarmament, that get little credit but are crucial. And in a practical sense, conservatives might note that the senior senator from Indiana has just had the scare of his political life. He’s never been primaried before. It is likely that he will return to Washington, if he’s allowed to return, newly alive to certain conservative needs and concerns. There, he will be able to take what might be called a refreshed sense of where people are, combine it with a veteran’s knowledge of how to move things forward, and help make the kind of progress conservatives long for.

Does all this reflect a bias toward stability, toward those who know how to lead and compromise and find agreement, at a time when Washington seems increasingly immature, feckless, unaware of urgency?

Yes, I do declare that bias. In Washington now very few have their eye on the big picture. Mr. Lugar does, and should not be lost.

Mark Peters of this paper wrote a smart piece this week noting that the primary is an open one, and the race may come down to the independent vote.

They should save the old guy. He has value.

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Senator Lugar Speaks to Hoosier Voters in Get Out the Vote TV Ad

From Senator Lugar Campaign office:

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