Precinct races key to dekookification

Nominations are pouring in for Operation Dekookification. It seems readers see no shortage of qualified candidates in the Arizona Legislature.

One of the top nominees thus far is Sen. Judy Burges, a Sun City West Republican often on the front lines, battling national and global conspiracies. This four-term House member slid over to the Senate in January upon the departure of everybody's favorite freeway fighter, Scott Bundgaard. She has led the way in the quest for Barack Obama's birth certificate and in efforts to foil the United Nations' dastardly plot to interfere with our God-given right to pollute any darned corner of this country that we so desire.

Alas, Burges is unopposed. That's an electoral story that is repeated far too often around this state.

So, to the question. Where are the rest of the Republicans in this and many other GOP-dominated districts, the candidates less obsessed with one-world domination and more concerned with one state's well-being?

More to the point, what can people do to ensure that in 2014, the Burgeses of the state have solid competition?

Kathy Petsas would tell you that if you want to dekookify this state, it must start at ground zero of Crazytown -- 24th Street and Osborn, Republican Party headquarters, that would be, where the extremists are apparently running amok.

Petsas has been active in GOP circles for decades. Her uncle, Tom Pappas, was chairman of the Arizona Republican Party in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when legislators worked together to pass important laws that enabled this state to grow and (until recently) thrive.

"The Republican Party that my uncle was chairman of years ago, this is not that party," Petsas told me. "It has become this platform for people to discuss moral social issues and make judgments and to condemn people for differing views instead of it being about job creation, free enterprise and small business."

Petsas says the party used to recruit strong Republican candidates, raising money to help them get elected. These days, she says, party leaders -- the people elected by precinct committeemen -- are interested only in promoting ideologues over pragmatic Republicans.

The big tent, it seems, has become more like a mud hut.

"The party's been hijacked by these self-interests and social interests," she said.

So how to become once more the party of big ideas? Petsas would tell you that begins with pragmatic Republicans reclaiming the party's leadership from ideologues, which means filling those precinct committee spots.

Which must be done by Wednesday.

There are 6,383 Republican precinct committee spots in Maricopa County alone, according to Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne.

These are the people who will elect new state and county leadership in January. Yet 3,467 of those slots are vacant, with no one running to fill them in the Aug. 28 election.

Put another way, of Maricopa County's 724 voting precincts, 235 have no one running to be a GOP precinct committeeman. Presumably, it's the same all over the state.

There is a chance to change that. The deadline for filing as a write-in candidate for a precinct committee spot is 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Petsas is looking for people to fill those vacant spots. If you're a Republican and you're interested in getting in on the ground floor of Operation Dekookification, here's what you need to do:

Go to the Maricopa County Recorder's Office website (recorder.maricopa.gov) and click on "elections" at the top. From the drop-down menu, choose "district locator" to find out what precinct you're in.

Then e-mail Petsas at info@reclaimRparty.org. Send her your name, address and precinct, and she will let you know if there are open spots that you could fill by becoming a write-in candidate.

If so, she'll send you the one-page application that must be filled out, notarized and returned to the Recorder's Office by 5 p.m. Wednesday. You can take it to either Recorder's Office location: 111 S. Third Ave. in Phoenix or 222 E. Javelina in Mesa.

If you're the only write-in candidate for a vacant spot, you'll be deemed elected on June 20.

It may sound like a small thing, but it's something you can do to begin the dekookification of our beloved state.

"This really effects change," Petsas said. "Responsible, pragmatic party leadership is going to evolve more pragmatic and responsible candidates. ? When it's run by mean-spirited ideologues, everyone's turned off. It doesn't help anybody. It doesn't help our state. The Republican Party needs to be working to get this state back on track."

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic

.com or 602-444-8635.

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