Today, Tuesday, September 29, 2026, the Apache Junction/Gold Canyon Independent published an op-ed article by Richard Grayson, "LD 7 House candidate condemns racist attacks against incumbent":
OPINION — As a candidate for state representative in Legislative District 7, I feel an obligation to say something about the racist attacks directed at Rep. Walt Blackman. They have greatly disturbed me.
Because we are on the same ballot, I guess that Walt Blackman is my political opponent. I have many disagreements with him, and I expect to continue having them. But none of those disagreements makes racist attacks against him acceptable.
Rep. Blackman recently called on elected officials and community leaders across the political spectrum to condemn social media posts depicting Black Americans as apes and using other degrading racial stereotypes. He also made an important distinction: defending the First Amendment does not require us to remain silent about hateful ideas. I agree.
I also want to be honest about something less comfortable. I sometimes have disparaging thoughts about people with whom I strongly disagree politically. I suspect I’m not unusual in that respect. Politics can make us angry, and anger can make it remarkably easy to reduce another human being to a caricature: an idiot, a monster, a fool, a threat. I have “said” things about others in my head that can and should make me ashamed.
But there is a difference between having an uncharitable thought and allowing contempt to become a principle of political discourse.
History gives us plenty of warnings. During Reconstruction, President Andrew Johnson’s bitter opposition to the Radical Republicans became intertwined with his opposition to political rights for formerly enslaved people. His public attacks on his congressional opponents became increasingly inflammatory.
More recently, President Donald Trump’s 2019 statement that four Democratic congresswomen of color should “go back” to the places from which they came was formally entered into the Congressional Record amid congressional condemnation.
The point isn’t that today’s politicians are equivalent to politicians of the past. It is that words matter. When political opponents are portrayed as less worthy, less American, less human or as members of some inherently inferior group, we move away from political argument and toward dehumanization.
And dehumanization is dangerous precisely because it makes cruelty easier.
Civility does not mean being bland, polite or unwilling to fight for what we believe. Democracy requires vigorous disagreement. We should criticize policies, records, statements and ideas, sometimes passionately.
But we should leave the person’s basic humanity outside the argument.
I don’t care whether the person being attacked is my opponent, my ally or someone I’ve never met. The standard should be the same.
I am not making this statement because I always agree with Walt Blackman. I am making it because I often disagree with him and because I believe political disagreement is worth having only if we can have it without demeaning one another.
Our opponents are still human beings. So are we. All of us, including myself, need to try harder to remember this.
That ought to be a very low bar for political discourse. But perhaps, at this particular moment, it is a bar worth publicly defending.
Richard Grayson is the Green Party candidate for Legislative District 7’s House seat, which includes Apache Junction, Gold Canyon, Flagstaff, Page, Winslow, Show Low, Sedona and Pinetop-Lakeside. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
Today, Sunday, February 20, 1983, the Miami Herald published a series of letters, "Two sides to Timerman," about the 60 Minutes interview with Jacobo Timerman, a Jewish critic of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, that includes a final letter by Richard Grayson:
In his letter charging CBS with anti-Semitism because "60 Minutes" featured an interview with the courageous Jacobo Timerman, Dr. Sidney Rosenberg has made the mistake that most of his ilk eventually do: equating blind loyalty to the fascistic Begin regime with being Jewish. Thus, in Dr. Rosenberg's eyes, which could use a checkup, Timerman equals anti-Semitism, and CBS is found guilty of giving "comfort and satisfaction" to bigots. I would like to inform Dr. Rosenberg that there are Jews all over the world, myself among them, who support Timerman and his efforts to make the Zionist state a more moral, more equitable and, yes, a more "Jewish" society.RICHARD GRAYSON
Davie.
We got an email from candidate Richard Grayson recently bragging that he had broken the algorithm for a tool on iVoterGuide that measures where a candidate falls on the political spectrum.
“I seem to be the only person in the voter guide who got that rating! I feel like everyone else is G, PG, PG-13 or R and I am NC-17,” he told us.
And “unclassifiable” is the perfect term for Grayson, a serial candidate and political performance artist who has run for something — often multiple things at once — every year for about as long as we can remember.
This year, Grayson is running as a Green Party candidate seeking a seat in the state House representing Legislative District 7, though on his campaign website he warns people not to vote for any Green Party candidates because they’re “jerks.”
We first came across Grayson in 2008 as part of Project White House, an “experiment in reality journalism,” run by longtime political reporter Jim Nintzel, back when he was in charge of the then-venerable Tucson Weekly.
Short version: Nintzel realized that all you had to do to qualify for the Presidential Preference Election in Arizona was get a form notarized.
So he enlisted the weirdest Tucsonans he could find to run for president.
Grayson was one of those weirdos.
Nintzel actually ran the gag for two presidential election cycles — in 2008 and 2012 — adding dozens of names to the ballot all for the sake of a good laugh.
Grayson ran both times, though he dropped out pretty early in 2008, citing “days of turmoil and division in the campaign of the handsome (candidate).”
Unfortunately, lawmakers eventually wised up to Nintzel, and they changed the law so he couldn’t run the same scam in the 2016 election cycle, as we wrote back then.
Anyway, this trip down memory lane gave us a good excuse to text Nintzel about the great joy we still get from those 2008-2012 Project White House archives.
“Had no idea at the time that it would serve as a model for so many modern-day candidates but here we are,” he wrote back.
The Arizona Citizens Clean Election Commission has published it November 2026 Voter Education Guide featuring candidates for state offices, including for State Representative in Legislative District 7, where Walter "Walt" Blackman, David Cook Sr., Richard Grayson, and Samuel "Sam" Martin are the candidates.
Alaska's House contest featured, again, Eric Hafner, who is serving a federal prison term in New York after pleading guilty in connection with a string of threats against government officials. He made the final ballot in 2024, and may do so this year, too. The Senate race featured his mother, Carol Hafner, and Green candidate Richard Grayson—neither of whom lives in the state. Of more than 30 candidates running for the Senate and House, few outside the incumbents or the main Democratic challenger even tried to raise money. Mr. Grayson recently explained that he was running “for fun,” that he actually supports Democrat Mary Peltola, and that if he makes the final four, he'll quit . . . [A] mystery organization, Fair Deal Alaaka, ran more than $750,000 to help the Carol Hafner campaigns draw votes from Mrs. Peltola.
