LCRD Congressional District One candidate forum.

On Thursday night, July 20, the Little Colorado River Democrats (LCRD) will be hosting a forum including all five of the Democratic candidates for Congress in Congressional district 1 (the winner of the nomination will run against Rick Renzi of Virginia, who in 2002 illegally raised and spent millions of dollars to buy a congressional seat in Arizona. The forum will be held at the La Posada in Winslow from 7-9 PM.

The five Democratic candidates are Mike Caccioppoli, Bob Donahue, Susan Friedman (who I could not find any other web site for), Vic McKerlie and Ellen Simon.

As a member of the organization hosting the forum, I am excited about having it in Winslow. Winslow is pretty close to being in the center of the district. And it in many ways is a prototypical small town, with a route 66 and blue collar railroad heritage that in many ways represents the district. Winslow is also just off the reservation and has a sizeable Navajo population that swells during the day as many people come in off of the reservation to shop, work and go to school.

The first district is a district with an 8% (43%-35%) Democratic registration advantage. We made a colossal mistake in failing to organize around a single candidate in 2002, and have suffered ever since. But the potential is there, a lot of people are fed up with Mr. Renzi, especially with his ties to Jack Abramoff. I believe the time may be right to take it back, if we can find the right candidate. I hope it will be one of those attending the forum. Speaking personally, I had been for Jack Jackson, who ran briefly for the seat and who I met several years ago at a state party meeting, and who I really respect; he later dropped out of the race so I am still looking for the right candidate. The only one of the five I have met is Susan Friedman, but I am very much undecided at this point. In that sense, I am also looking forward to helping organize and work at this forum to see if any of the five candidates really stand out as 'yeah, that's the one.' We'll have to keep tuned.