# Doug Ducey AZ Candidate For Governor platform is just another run-in with reality.

Excerpt from the Examiner

AZ GOP gubernatorial candidate's 'fairy tale math' is a mythic run-in with reality

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Doug Ducey is just another Republican candidate who is so far flung in his thinking that he believes he can imaginatively reinvent the political, social and especially financial realities out West.
His insistence that the state can somehow get out from under the thumb of the federal government is a sign that he's another right-wing ideologue. Arizona is No. 8 in the nation in terms of federal funds received annually. The state's economy is dependent upon the defense industry. No wonder his opponent, Democratic challenger Fred DuVal accuses Ducey of "fairy tale math." 

Ducey, who resembles a Gila monster in a suit with a Bob's Big Boy haircut, can at least be credited for one thing: A single-minded determination to keep to his talking points, regardless of what the question might be at the debate. As the former CEO of the Cold Stone ice cream chain, I can definitely see him in an apron wielding an ice cream scoop, but I'm not sure how that qualifies him for governor.

Exposing a myth is easy enough to do, but when you are trying to see through piles of propaganda high as mountains, it's easy to get stuck in the quicksand if you don't keep your eyes to the ground. The myth I'm referring to is that Arizonans have some kind of special independent streak that sets them apart from the rest of the nation. As GOP nominee Ducey puts it on the endless campaign commercials, "We are known for our independence streak here in Arizona."

Just takes a little research to find this is not the case. The point is, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ducey is accused of getting a government bailout due to the failure rates and financing, in general, for his Cold Stone ice cream franchises. It got so bad, it didn't even take a political commercial to put me over the edge (that is, to inspire an extended commentary). Nope, it was an ice cream commercial that boasted Arizonans are "fiercely independent."

How this could be is the root of the myth of the West as somehow being some kind of island of do-it-yourself virtues, and also helps to explain why Arizona continues to breed such weird political animals. All kinds of ironies persist. State residents, consisting mainly of conservatives and so-called "independents" are unhinged from the truth by politicians playing either a pretty cynical game, or, are so dyslexic over the state's real history they have merely swallowed the Kool-Aid.

 The truth is out there, somewhere far in the southwestern deserts of the state, waiting to explode like some kind of unexploded ordnance on the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, 1.9 million acres of bomb targeted rock and dust roughly the size of Connecticut. Yes, Arizona's elected are pretty strong on defense, the largest portion of the federal budget, and, a huge part of Arizona's economy.

The American Southwest owes its very civilization to the federal government. And Arizona is completely on life support in myriad ways. For example, without water from the Central Arizona Project, a federal project carrying water from the Colorado River to Phoenix and Tucson, such cities would have never grown to blob status. Before that was built, before Arizona was even a state, the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 set up the possibility of raising federal funds for irrigation projects across the West. Because the Southwest is a drought-dry desert, and anyone who lives there is essentially receiving only slightly less life support than what's needed on the moon.

In 2011 Cronkitenewsonline.com reported "Federal funds flowing to Arizona have doubled in the past 10 years." Citing the U.S. Census Bureau, the report states "Arizona residents, governments and businesses received $64 billion in federal money in fiscal 2010, more than double what the state received in 2001 ." (This year it was reported that Arizona ranked 10th in the nation for federal funds.)

"The biggest increase in federal funds to Arizona over the past decade was not in salaries or welfare payments, but in federal grants to the state and to local jurisdictions, which grew from $5.4 billion in 2001 to $14.4 billion (in 2010)," the report states, a 164 percent increase that occurred while the state's population grew 20 percent, from 5.3 million people to 6.4 million. The very notion that Arizona is "fiercely independent" doesn't score very high when, according to Ballotpedia.org, the state is No. 8 in the nation in terms of federal aid to state budgets, more than Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

According to Forbes, as a percentage of GDP, Arizona is among the top 10 states (ranked No.8), receiving nearly three percent of all defense spending, $2,321 per resident. Tucson is among the top 10 for military spending or contracts, receiving $4.9 billion per year. The entire state accounts for 96,000 jobs, $9.1 billion in annual economic output and $401 million in state and local taxes. It's no wonder that politicians like Arizona's outgoing governor Jan Brewer stressed that defense is the state's No. 1 industry.

So Ducey may be able to scoop ice cream, but it's not going to do him much good when going head-to-head over federal expenditures with Raytheon. Yes, there are some outlanders out there, and Ducey is one of them. 

Echoing the beliefs of outlaw rancher Cliven Bundy, who has refused to recognize the federal government's authority, Arizona's GOP front-runner is simply amping up the ideology for Arizona's far right. Yet, the fact is, Ducey's platform is just another run-in with reality.