Check out the website: https://lenspoliticalnotes.com Look at the recent Political Notes and Len’s Letters on the website:
March 4, 2023 Political Note #544 Ruben Gallego Arizona Senator
2024 General Election
Ruben Gallego
Did you know he changed his name? In 2008, just short of his 30th birthday, Ruben Gallego changed his name from Ruben Marinelarena to Ruben Marinelarena Gallego. Whether that change was to follow the Hispanic custom of the maternal surname being last or to honor his mother who raised him and his sisters alone because his father left them, that name change made political life easier. His name could fit on a ballot or a road sign. People still remember that he has been a US Marine without “marine” being part of his name.
An Arizona Congressman since 2014, Ruben Gallego has announced a run for the US Senate. The incumbent Senator up for election in 2024, Kyrsten Sinema, announced she was leaving the Democratic Party. From a family even poorer than Ruben Gallegos’, her family famously lived in an abandoned gas station for a period of time. Her earliest forays into politics were as a candidate for the Green Party. By the time she was a Member of Congress running for the US Senate, she was an erratically conservative Democrat. As a Senator, she never convinced her colleagues or the public that her conservatism was principled. Instead, she has been accused of acquiescing to corporate lobbyists in her opposition to increasing voting rights or the income of child care workers. Ruben Gallego is convinced that Kyrsten Sinema’s remaining base is sufficiently small and so evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, that his chance of getting elected is the same whether she runs for reelection or not.
Born in Chicago, Ruben Gallego was the son of a Mexican-born father and a Colombian-born mother. He was raised by his mother in Evergreen Park, a half hour south, southwest of downtown Chicago. Ruben Gallego retained a connection with his father until he lost his job and drifted into dealing drugs. A 2004 graduate of Harvard, Ruben Gallego described his admission to that university as the culmination of a distinctive and strategic struggle. He learned about and borrowed SAT prep books from the high school library. He expresses gratitude to the owners of the hamburger joint he worked in throughout high school for allowing him to do practice tests while at work. He contacted Harvard students with Latino names looking for help about applying. He mastered the process of applying for financial aid and used a borrowed computer for his application. He never went to Massachusetts for an interview, but in Chicago had to figure out how to take public transportation to get to alumni interviews.
After graduation, having worked his way through Harvard with menial jobs, Ruben Gallego joined the US Marines. He had gained a girlfriend who he met at a Harvard event, average grades, the experience of Washington internships, and the perspective you get by earning your spending money cleaning the dorm rooms of fellow students and serving them drinks at events. Responding in an interview, Ruben Gallegorecalled intellectual talks about politics attended by fellow students Pete Buttigieg and Elaine Stefanik while he was working as a server.
By 2005, he was deployed to Iraq. That was two years after “Shock and Awe,” a year before Saddam Hussein was captured. Deployed into the middle of combat, with a battalion and regiment that lost 47 in combat, Ruben Gallego returned to the United States committed to veterans of the war he had fought in. Recalling the soldierly anger of being sent to war unprotected by sufficient armor, he saw that anger against callous authority as a precursor to the anger Donald Trump capitalized on.
Ruben Gallego and his New Mexico-based Harvard girlfriend moved to Phoenix after graduation. She had grown up in Albuquerque. For him it was a move from the country’s third largest city to its fifth. And a move to a more Latino city. He didn’t stay long, though. He joined the Marines and was sent to Iraq. He and his girlfriend did not marry until 2010. They divorced in 2016. Politically ambitious herself, she is now the mayor of Phoenix. He is remarried – to a Washington attorney and lobbyist for the real estate industry.
By 2009, he was back in Phoenix, serving as the Chief of Staff for a City Councilman. In 2010, he was elected to the State Assembly. There, he led the effort to grant in-state tuition eligibility to any veteran living in Arizona. By 2012, he was the Assembly’s Minority Leader. And he was organizing. He led a recall effort against Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He went to work for Strategies 360 as Director of Latino and New Media Operations. In 2014, endorsed by a PAC with a goal to reduce the role of money in politics, he won the primary and election to Congress.
Some say that idealists and comedians are cynical. Ruben Gallego is a cynical idealist politician. He is acutely aware of how politicians are unfaithful to each other and seek advantage for themselves. He sees Republican politicians, in their support for Donald Trump and the January 6 insurrection, as protecting themselves rather than protecting the country; as retreating from a fight even though they knew how dangerous Trump was. He sees Democrats success with Hispanics as a product of their ability speak to Hispanics about the American Dream in a way of speaking that all Americans share. Since January 6, 2021, Gallego and other Democrats speak about democracy just as they speak about the American Dream.
Some see Ruben Gallego as too progressive, as someone who would not be able to unify Democrats in a state that has only recently shifted from being heavily Republican. Because Ruben Gallego’s politics are consistent, no one sees him as bending to corporations, not even to the real estate interests his wife works for. Some analysts argue Ruben Gallego is not radical, but is rough around the edges. That quality could be just right for a frontier state.
Ruben Gallego’s congressional district is overwhelmingly Hispanic. He will have to appeal to a state that, according to the 2020 census, is still, by a narrow margin, majority white. While thirty percent of Arizona’s population is Hispanic, Ruben Gallego cannot be solely a candidate for Hispanics.
No Republicans have announced. None of the possibilities are moderate. The most likely, perhaps, is extremist Kari Lake who just lost the race for governor.
No other Democrats have announced. The two strongest possible Democratic opponents are the former and the current mayors of Phoenix. The former mayor Greg Stanton, is remaining a Member of Congress. The current mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, Ruben Gallego’s ex-wife and mother of his child, has also announced she would not run.
Get in now. Help Ruben Gallego on his way to being a US Senator from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. Protect this Democratic seat. Make certain that Arizona has two Democratic Senators.
Wisconsin Primaries; Special Elections Scheduled for April 4. Donate to achieve important Democratic wins.
Wisconsin Supreme Court
Liberal-leaning County Judge Janet Protasiewicz was the highest vote getter on February 21 in the non-partisan primary for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court. She received 46% of the vote. Criticized for indicating how she was likely to vote on issues like women’s reproductive rights and redistricting, the voters appeared to be glad to have the information. Former Supreme Court member Daniel Kelly, who lost his seat in the 2020 election, was the second highest vote getter with 24% of the vote. Though less explicit, a conservative activist, Kelly left no doubt about where he would vote on controversial social and cultural issues.
Currently, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has 3 members whose lean can be identified as progressive, 2 members whose lean can be identified as conservative, and one member who usually votes with the conservatives. A victory for Janet Protasiewicz on April 4 would likely transform the Wisconsin political landscape. People who spend more money on elections than most of the readers of this newsletter will spend a lot of money on this campaign. Smaller donors count. Support Janet Protasiewicz. For more inforation, see Len’s Political Note #528.
Wisconsin State Senate District 08
Environmental attorney Jodi Habush Sinykin was the only serious Democratic candidate in the February 21 primary. The Republicans had a choice of three. They chose State Rep Dan Knodl. In the primary, he defeated a Trump acolyte so extreme and so problematic for House Speaker Robin Vos that Wisconsin Republicans banned her from their caucus. Knodl emphasizes reducing spending, cutting taxes, and public safety. He would be a reliable conservative vote against abortion and on other cultural issues. Wisconsin Republicans are talking about their ability, with a two-thirds supermajority in each body of the legislature, to impeach and remove any state official. The Republicans in the state House of Representatives are two seats away from gaining a two-thirds supermajority. Jodi Habush Sinykin’s election would flip a Republican seat and prevent the State Senate from having a two-thirds supermajority. See Len’s Political Note #529 for more information about Jodi Habush Sinykin.
A Development in Virginia
If you have been reading these Notes, you have joined others in following Virginia closely. Democrats are working to come out of the 2023 election with majorities in both the House of Delegates and the State Senate. One recently announced retirement will make it a little harder.
Incumbent Democrat John Edwards in Virginia Senate District 04, a Republican leaning district, has announced his retirement. I will let you know where VASD04 stands in my post-June primary Note about competitive races.
