Richard Grayson Ties for Third Place with 6.96% of the Vote in 2012 Arizona Green Party Presidential Preference Primary

We tied for third place, with 6.96% of the vote, in yesterday's Arizona Green Party presidential preference primary. But we had 39 votes, and the second-place finisher had only 50 votes, so we weren't far behind. We finished second in four counties: Pima (Tucson), Pinal (our home county), Mohave and Navajo, and we tied for second in a fifth county, Cochise. In three Arizona counties -- La Paz, Santa Cruz and Greenlee -- we finished in a six-way tie for first place, or last place, since none of the Green Party candidates got any votes at all.

We carried our hometown, Apache Junction, and apparently the Navajo Nation as well. In a majority of Arizona counties (8 out of 15), we did no worse than second place. Here is the end of today's front-page story in The Arizona Republic, which was of course mostly about Mitt Romney's win in the Republican primary:

Although Republican politics dominated the day, six Green Party candidates also appeared on Arizona's primary ballot. Jill Stein, a physician who has run for statewide office several times in Massachusetts, jumped out to an early lead, far outpolling the other candidate with a national organization, Kent Mesplay, who is an air- quality inspector from San Diego County.

Two other nationally prominent candidates did not make it on Arizona's ballot: Harley Mikkelson, a retired government employee from Michigan, and comedian Roseanne Barr.

Richard Grayson, a familiar face in the Arizona Green Party, appeared on the ballot, but he released a statement last month that he would act as a stand-in for Barr and ask that votes he receives be given to her at the national convention this July in Baltimore.

Two other Arizonans, Gerard Davis and Michael Oatman, along with Gary Swing, who is also a candidate for Congress in Colorado, trailed in votes.

This is an early report from reporter Suzanne Adams' story in the Kingman Daily Miner in Mohave County, where we got 25% of the vote, our second-best showing:

According to unofficial election results, Romney got 39 percent and Santorum got 31 percent of 15,070 Mohave County Republican voters. Newt Gingrich came in third with 21 percent of the vote and Ron Paul received 9 percent.

Romney won Arizona by a slightly larger margin - 47 percent of state Republicans voted for Romney and 27 percent voted for Rick Santorum. Gingrich also came in third in the state with 16 percent, followed by Paul with 9 percent.

In the race for the Green Party nomination Stein got five of the votes from eight Mohave County Green Party members who participated Tuesday. Richard Grayson came in second with 2 votes and Michael Oatman came in third with one vote.

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.

Tucson Weekly Endorses Richard Grayson in Arizona Green Party Presidential Preference Primary on February 28

We are happy and grateful that Tucson Weekly has endorsed us in next Tuesday's Arizona Green Party presidential preference primary. Here is today's editorial:

Severely Awesome

We endorse Republican Sarah Gonzales and Green Richard Grayson in next week's presidential primary

by The Weekly Editorial Board


We've had many people ask us over the last few months whether Project White House 2012 is serious, or just a big joke.

We find ourselves asking: Is Newt Gingrich's moon base a big joke? Is Ron Paul serious when he says that medical care for seniors was better before Medicare? Is Rick Santorum serious when he says that abortion doctors belong behind bars? Is Mitt Romney serious when he says his sons are serving the country by helping him get elected rather than enlisting in the military?

In light of all that, we believe the Project White House candidates are just as serious about running the country as the Republican Party's frontrunners.

In case you have not been following Project White House: We invited all of the candidates on the Feb. 28 Arizona presidential-primary ballot to participate in a Reality Journalism competition in order to win the Tucson Weekly's presidential endorsement.

More than half of the Republicans on the ballot—12 out of 23—signed up, as did half of the Green Party candidates.

Over the last several weeks, we have presented them with a variety of challenges, from making Facebook pages for their campaigns to developing hit ads against their high-profile opponents. The competition culminated last weekend with a pair of presidential debates televised by our friends at Access Tucson. (If you missed 'em, they've been posted on The Range so you can size up the candidates yourselves.)

Now, with the Feb. 28 presidential primary just days away, the time has come for us to make our endorsements.

We must say: We're impressed with this year's crop of dark-horse Republican candidates. We think that Charles Skelley is right when he says that too many manufacturing jobs have left the United States. Al "Dick" Perry is right when he says that corporations have too much power and demonstrate too little civic responsibility. Peter "Simon" Bollander is right when he says we have too many lawyers in politics. Jim Terr is right when he says a cascade of money has corrupted our election process. Donald Benjamin is right when he says grocery stores are too confusing. And Kip Dean is right when he says the front-runners in the GOP primary are just plain unlikable.

That brings us to a fundamental problem with the GOP: It's in desperate need of a makeover. These old white dudes running for president—Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul—just don't seem to be in touch with the modern world or remotely prepared to deal with its increasingly complex challenges.

And that's why we're endorsing Sarah Gonzales, the only Latina on the GOP primary ballot in Arizona.

In the Project White House televised debates, Gonzales described herself as "severely awesome"—and we're inclined to agree. We don't know that we agree with her stances on everything, but much of what she calls for sounds good to us.

We should spend less on overseas wars. We should pay teachers more. We should have more arts classes and physical education in our schools. We should crack down on white-collar crime. We should reconsider how many people we lock away, and stop the growth of a private-prison industry that turns a profit on putting people behind bars. We should invest more in solar energy. We should have more poetry in our lives.

And we agree with what Gonzales says about her platform: It makes a lot more sense than 9-9-9.

The Tucson Weekly endorses Sarah Gonzales in the 2012 Arizona Republican primary.

The Greens

Three of the six Green Party candidates on the Arizona ballot are participating in Project White House: Richard Grayson, Gary Swing and Michael Oatman.

All of the Greens have done a lot to express their plans through Project White House, but we have been most impressed with Richard Grayson, including his plan to deport Republicans back to the 18th century, where they could be more comfortable with their tricorner hats and other Tea Party garb, and his demand that Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu be nicer to his ex-boyfriends. Few of the Project White House candidates have done a better job of responding to the issues of the day.