Bill Clinton won here in 1996, but two years later Arizona remains a one-party state–Republican. In this election year, the Arizona Democrats are pluckily predicting victory. “You’re gonna have a lot more Democrats to kick around, come November,” chirps the party’s state chairman Mark Fleisher of the statewide offices he…

By now, Arizona Republicans have chosen either Tom McGovern or John Kaites as their candidate for attorney general in November’s election. Either way, John Kaites’ political star has fallen. If McGovern won, the deed is done. If, by some twist of wacky Arizona electoral fate, Kaites pulled this thing off…

Once upon a time, in a land of citrus trees and money and neighborhoods with names like Paradise Valley, there lived a fairy princess and an ogre. The young princess–Robin Shaw–was so beautiful that the people chose her to lead them after seeing her pretty picture on signs posted across…

In an otherwise ho-hum political season, the GOP attorney general primary has emerged as the race to watch–as much for its pure entertainment value as for what it divulges about the condition of Arizona’s Republican party. Tom McGovern and John Kaites both want to be Arizona’s top law enforcement officer,…

Let’s get one thing straight. Barring the discovery that she had a tryst with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky–and Linda Tripp got to watch–Jane Dee Hull will be reelected. By a wide margin. It’s a no-brainer. The economy’s good, the opposition’s weak and, after Fife Symington, Jane Hull looks like…

Almost 200 people are gathered at Scottsdale City Hall on a mid-July afternoon for what Mayor Sam Campana blissfully has dubbed an “information workshop” on the city’s latest conundrum: the proposed Spur Cross Ranch land exchange. Spur Cross Ranch is not actually in Scottsdale, but the proposed trade that would…

Last week, state treasurer Tony West got caught in the Web when the dailies reported he was pimping his corporation commission campaign on his state-sponsored treasurer’s office Internet site. The offending statement–“Treasurer West is running for election to the Corporation Commission this year. Click here to visit his campaign web…

Retired Army Colonel Earl Hopper, Sr. is a godfather of the Vietnam War POW/MIA activist movement in America. The Glendale resident has served both as executive director and chairman of the board of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, the country’s largest, best-known…

The showdown started in high June. Facing off are the top guns of Maricopa County’s two crime-fighting agencies. But instead of six-shooters, County Attorney Rick Romley and Sheriff Joe Arpaio loaded their word processors and fired off nasty memos about the other to the county Board of Supervisors. The latest…

Arizona State University has exonerated ASU Art Museum Director Marilyn Zeitlin of wrongdoing in connection with allegations of misuse of university funds. Last week, ASU released findings of a four-month internal investigation into the allegations, which had surfaced in a state auditor general’s report last March. The conclusion: More than…

I’d like to point out that it’s been a wonderful two weeks for me. I haven’t had quite this much fun since I was interrogated in Hanoi. –Senator John McCain His anti-tobacco bill bombed. He was caught making fun of the First Daughter. The Supremes canned his line-item veto. And…

Joe Arpaio likes to call himself the Country’s Toughest Sheriff. Now Rick Romley’s angling for the title “Sportiest County Attorney.” For the past few weeks, Romley’s been cruising around town in a spiffy brand-new white Ford Explorer–the deluxe Eddie Bauer edition, no less–courtesy of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. Quite…

The dawn of a new campaign. It’s 7:25 a.m., Tuesday, March 3, at the foot of the steps to Old Main, the University of Arizona’s trademark edifice in Tucson. Ed Ranger has traveled to the bottom of the state to announce his candidacy for the top spot on Arizona’s political…

He didn’t get around to mentioning John McCain by name until five pages into his speech, but it was clear Steven Goldstone came to Phoenix last week to embarrass the United States senator on his home turf. The CEO of RJR Nabisco certainly didn’t come all the way from Ridgefield,…

The head of a local campaign finance reform initiative drive has accused a tobacco company lobbyist of trying to give his campaign a “poison pill” in the form of a $5,000 contribution. The lobbyist–Phoenix-based attorney John Mangum, who represents Phillip Morris–denies ever making the offer and in return accuses Arizonans…

The Arizona Republic made national news earlier this year when the paper’s managing editor called 60 laid-off employees “fat, lazy, incompetent and slow.” Some or all of the newsroom employees booted in January 1997 likely will sue the company by the end of the summer, sources tell New Times, buoyed…

As one of the few Republicans in Congress to support a campaign-finance reform proposal–heck, he plastered his name all over it–U.S. Senator John McCain has a national reputation as the champion of election reform. But does he deserve that reputation? Last week, organizers of Arizonans for Clean Elections, a campaign…

Most Arizonans have never heard of Ben Friedman, but he belongs in a lineup with Fife Symington and Charlie Keating. Symington ripped off a Japanese bank, and Keating stole from little old ladies. Through the years, Ben Friedman’s victims included local furniture tycoon Murray Goodman and even Jerry Colangelo, but…

When a college journalist mistook George and Jerry for lovers on the celebrated Seinfeld episode “The Outing,” George offered to have sex with Sharon, the reporter. When a Paradise Valley Country Club assistant golf pro allegedly spread the rumor that member Michele “Missy” Pozgay and her friend Shelly Nixon had…

Promotional materials for Jim Martin’s nonfiction expose on the Maricopa Community College District promise the book “reads like fiction.” That’s precisely the trouble, say many of the “characters” in the self-published screed by Martin, who recently ended his 18-year stint as a journalism instructor at Scottsdale Community College. It’s not…

Stephane Janssen almost died last year, so Marilyn Zeitlin sent him some flowers. Zeitlin, director of the Arizona State University Art Museum, figured it was the least the museum could do. Janssen, a Belgium-born, world-class art aficionado–his personal art collection could literally fill a museum–was one of the museum’s most…

Last year, Maricopa County employee Yolanda Robinson reported her co-worker, Joe Coulter, for sexual harassment. Apparently her complaints have been warranted–and then some. County officials refused to release an investigation into Coulter’s behavior toward Robinson. But they did offer up a redacted copy of the written reprimand Coulter received as…