The Arizona Republic has an interview with Matt Salmon running for GOP state chairman. I find his comments rather amusing.

Q. Some people have called the chairman's job a thankless duty that's filled with headaches and long hours. Why would you want such a job?

A. "There is a lot of opportunity to bring some of the factions within my party under the umbrella of unity. We've had a lot of infighting in our party for the past couple of years. I do believe we certainly can do a better job of disagreeing without being so disagreeable. Tolerance has to go both ways, for the moderates and the conservatives. I'm not ever going to tell people to march in lockstep. But I will tell people to stop being so mean to one another."

I find this quote really funny because he was never a uniter in the House in fact he was quite the opposite. He was known as one of a group of 9 House members that were holdouts rather than stand united with others. Now he wants to bring people together, I don't think I'll hold my breath on that.

With stories like this as motivation. I just went to Amazon's site and deleted every movie off my Wish List. A little hint to the movie industry I have heard often said these days to the music industry,

When you treat your customers like thiefs, don't expect me (or many other people) to continue as customers.

I was running through the Arizona election results and the first district got my attention on the Secretary of State Election Results page when I noticed Rick Renzi won by 59% to 35% by Paul Babbitt, very strong for any Freshman seeking reelection.

I think this goes to a point where Renzi has differed from the rest of the Arizona delegation, he actually brings the district's tax dollars home. McCain and most of the Representatives are afraid of bringing home federal dollars lest it gets labeled pork. The problem is with this mindset is the state doesn't get it's tax dollars sent home, especially from my own Congressional experience in transportation issues. Renzi has brought home a number of projects which points to his success in the election.

Then I went to the Coconino County Election Results page. A fact I missed when I was looking at the state page suddenly jumped out at me. Renzi is in a deadheat with Paul Babbitt in the county. They are seperated as I look right now by 44 votes (out of roughly 45,000 votes WOW!) . Babbitt had in theory all the advantages in this county, name recognition, history of local public service, long family history, etc. In the end Renzi's hard work the last two years kept him even and that played big into his winning. Back at the State page in ever other county Renzi won nearly 2 to 1 over Babbitt, except Pinal. Babbitt lacked name recognition other than his brother, the former Gov and Secretary of Interior. In fact Greenlee county a coworker from there told me today how the county was heavily Democratic but the name Babbitt only brings back bad memories which may explain the results there. The other counties may have delivered the win, but the tie in Coconino county allowed for it to happen.

One other humerous note I see that Coconino Counties results for President are a near reverse mirror image of the states result for President. It just goes to show the local, ahem, flavor.