Tuesday Evening in Apache Junction: Green Party Presidential Candidate Richard Grayson Votes in Arizona Primary at Cactus Canyon Junior High School

With less than an hour before the polls close in today's Arizona presidential preference primary, we went over to Cactus Canyon Junior High as we drove up Southern Avenue from spending time with our mom at the Apache Junction Health Center nursing home.

The nice poll workers there told us that we were the first Green Party voter they'd had all day, so we might have even carried our home precinct, number 40 in Pinal County, with our vote for ourselves.

This Republican voter was one of the few people there. We are hoping to finish at least fifth out of six candidates in today's Green primary and plan to concede early at our campaign headquarters so that our dad, brothers and brother's girlfriend can watch TV.

East Valley Tribune Covers Campaign of Green Party Presidential Candidate Richard Grayson in Arizona Primary

The East Valley Tribune (Mesa, AZ) has covered the campaign of Green Party presidential candidate Richard Grayson in Arizona's February 28 Green Party presidential preference primary:

Three East Valley residents on presidential preference ballot

Posted: Sunday, January 22, 2012 12:41 pm | Updated: 9:18 am, Mon Jan 23, 2012.

By Garin Groff, Tribune

If Arizona voters aren't convinced Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich or other nationally-known figures are presidential material, there's no shortage of Arizona-grown candidates to consider.

Nearly two dozen obscure candidates will appear on Arizona's Feb. 28 presidential preference ballot, including three East Valley residents.

About half the lesser-known candidates are from out of state, with the rest from across Arizona.

One thing all candidates have in common: They got on the ballot with ease.

All they had to do was fill out a two-page form with the Arizona Secretary of State, swear they met Constitutional requirements for the office and have the paperwork notarized. There was no fee to get on the ballot.

The 23 Republican candidates include Cesar Cisneros of Mesa and Wayne Arnett of Tempe, who join national figures Romney, Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Richard Grayson of Apache Junction is one of six Green Party candidates on Arizona's ballot.

Cisneros spoke earnestly about his bid for commander-in-chief. The trucking company owner and big rig driver said he's talked to thousands of people in numerous states since he began campaigning in 2010.

Cisneros, 62, is a Mormon with a wife and seven adult children who has never run for office. He is disappointed none of the other candidates have called for religion to play a greater role in public life.

"In order for us to prosper as a nation and to really be protected, we need the teachings of almighty God," Cisneros said.

Many of his views are standard for a Republican. He's for a strong national defense, low taxes and the Keystone gas pipeline. However, he wants to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants without felony records. After that, he'd seal the border.

Cisneros has never spoken to a big crowd and has only been able to get to other states because of his trucking job, he said. He's raised a few thousand dollars.

Americans of ordinary means are perhaps more qualified for the White House than wealthy candidates, he said.

"If they have these millions and billions of dollars, believe me, they're out of touch with the American people," he said. "How can they be in touch?"

He isn't included in the CNN Republican debate at the Mesa Arts Center on Feb. 22, but asked that voters call CNN to urge his inclusion. Cisneros said his desire to run comes from the heart but he acknowledges his odds of winning are slim.

"My slogan is: Miracles happen," he said.

Arnett didn't return a phone call left at his Chandler law firm.

Grayson did speak, though he said that "any publicity will probably just lose me votes."

The 60-year-old writer figures this is his fourth time on a ballot in Florida and Arizona since 1982. He first ran for a town council seat in a small Florida community.

"The people were starting to outnumber the horses, and I was mad about that," Grayson said. "My proposal was to give horses the right to vote, and I got 25 percent of the vote."

He ran for the 6th Congressional District in 2010, which is represented by Republican Jeff Flake. The Green Party sued to kick him off the ballot, but he prevailed. Just before election day, Grayson blogged that he didn't care if voters chose him. He added that most voters in the district "are ignorant morons."

Grayson said he doesn't tell people he's running, doesn't campaign and doesn't care if he gets any votes. He figures he'll get a handful of votes.

"Green Party primaries are pretty rare and Arizona, to its credit, has the easiest ballot requirements for presidential primaries," Grayson said. "For someone like me, it was irresistible. I mean, how can you just let it go by?"

Given the potential voice a presidential candidate could use, does Grayson at least have a message?

"No," he said. "I think more people should run. Or maybe Arizona should change its law or change its requirements so you have to be an actual, serious candidate."

Contact writer: (480) 898-6548 or ggroff@evtrib.com

Tuesday Morning in Downtown Phoenix: Official Drawing for Arizona Presidential Primary Ballot at the Historic Senate Chambers at the State Capitol

This morning we were again at the Arizona State Capitol

in downtown Phoenix for the official drawing for the Arizona presidential preference primary ballot order

for the Green and Republican parties.

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett presided as candidates or their representatives drew lots

from a historic trophy, given by the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1915 to the USS Arizona in 1915,

and announced the results. We went up first of all the candidates because we were the first Green to file,

and had our campaign manager, Bunny Greenblatt, draw for us.

She handed the paper to Secretary Bennett and he announced that we got ballot position five out of the six candidates in the February 28 primary. We had made sure to wear all Green for luck, but it didn't work.

Neither did evil Sheriff Joe Arpaio. This fat old cannibal from the house of walking swastikas drew number 17 out of 23 for Texas Governor Rick Perry on the Republican ballot.

Many of the candidates are part of Project White House 2012,

a civic project of the Tucson Weekly newspaper, which has encouraged ordinary people to get on the ballot.

All of Secretary Bennett's staff worked hard to make this a great event and were extremely helpful to everyone.

Secretary Bennett himself, using white gloves, drew for those candidates who weren't there, and one of his staff members, as he said, "played Vanna White" and put up the candidate's name in the proper ballot order. (Bunny and I did it ourselves.)

It was a tense moment as Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin went to draw for Mitt Romney, who got ballot position number 9, which the Speaker hopes was good enough to get him a job as undersecretary of something.

When Sheriff Arpaio went up to draw for Rick Perry,

he apparently noticed Bunny sitting next to me. The next we thing we knew, a deputy asked her for proof that she wasn't in this country illegally.

Actually more annoying to Bunny was news radio station KFYI getting her name wrong:

Arizona's lax requirements to get on the ballot leads to colorful candidates on the ballot. Green Party candidate Richard Grayson brought his stuffed animal, Bunny Green Black, who he claims is his campaign manager to pick his ballot number.

This is presidential candidate Gerard Davis of Phoenix, who was accompanied by his wife Sonya and their child. He is number 6 out of six on the Green Party ballot, but the last shall be first, according to Rick Santorum (whose representative, a really nice man, was wearing a sweater vest just like his candidate).

This is Kip Dean, one of the Republican presidential candidates you've never heard of, perhaps because unlike Romney, Paul, Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, Santorum, Bachmann, Cain and the serious ones, Kip actually knows that we're not in the 1950s anymore and he's not running for leader of Leave It to Beaverland.

Kip wrote this and posted this pic on Facebook:

Favorite part of my day--the rolling of Sheriff Joe's eyes and his comment of "gawd" when he saw Richard Grayson's campaign manager (the bunny hand puppet pictured in the middle of us) pull his ballot spot slip for the Green Party Presidential Primary. My thoughts were different as I thought the bunny puppet was smarter than John Huntsman's campaign staff and Rick Perry's racist jackass slip puller (Joe himself).

These people in the back looked like politicians and seemed out of place.

The press was really interested in why former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China did not make the ballot when all anyone had to do was sign a simple declaration of candidacy and get it notarized. Secretary Bennett said that if Gov. Huntsman was going to challenge his not being on the Arizona ballot, he'd better do it fast because Maricopa County planned to start printing their ballots tonight.

Arizona Green Party co-chair Angel Torres drew for both of the presidential candidates officially recognized by the Green Party of the United States, Jill Stein and Kent Mesplay, and at the end of the drawing took photos of the ballot so the Arizona Green Party will know which of its own candidates it will sue to kick off the ballot this year.

Bunny and I were grateful to everyone at the Secretary of State's office and to all the fine candidates running in the Arizona presidential preference election.

It was wonderful to see American democracy at work, sort of.

Tuesday Afternoon in Apache Junction: Richard Grayson interviewed by ABC15 about his Green Party presidential campaign

Back in Apache Junction, we were interviewed this afternoon by Eric English of ABC15 of Phoenix about our candidacy for the Green Party presidential nomination. We are running in the February 28 Arizona Green Party presidential preference primary.