Buyer (voter) beware - LD26 Senate candidate Dale Eames doesn't want you to know he's really a Republican UPDATED 10-23-14

On Thursday,  all six LD26 candidates for House and Senate seats met at Arizona State University's Memorial Union for the Clean Elections Debate. Nobody ducked out, they all attended.

Left to right: Sen. Ed Ableser, Republican/pretend Independent Dale Eames, Rep. Juan Mendez, Republican House candidate James Roy, Rep. Andrew Sherwood, and "Libertarian" House candidate Chris Will.

I put Libertarian in quotes because even though Ms. Will is on the ballot as a result of Libertarians nominating her, she doesn't seem to espouse key Libertarian ideas. She expressed the need for government policies enhancing equality and indicated that it would be important to raise the minimum wage.

James Roy is very much a political rookie. A decent guy who has embarked on a task that takes courage and stamina, Roy still lacks basic understanding of government. His answers to debate questions demonstrated that his political insight is limited to general conservative talking points.

At one point, he Dale Eames described Ed, Juan and Andrew as bureaucrats. That's not simply a misstep. Bureaucrats work in bureaucracies. The legislature is not a bureaucracy. It is a deliberative body composed of those who (are supposed to) represent the voters who elected them.

Ed, Juan and Andrew all delivered answers that reflected both thoughtful understanding of their jobs as lawmakers and their experience in the legislature. Juan made a mistake about a subject on which I earnestly hope he sees the light very, very soon. When asked about lobbyist gifts and whether he'd support a ban on them, Juan made two points. One was valid, one was not. He described the effect of the rushed schedule for lawmakers to read, consider and deliberate on the bills. The very short time frame makes lawmakers depend too much on lobbyists for insight on the benefits and consequences of passing any given bill. That's a valid point, to a degree.

But Juan also told the 30 or so people in the audience that lobbyist gifts do not influence lawmakers. That's simply not true. Behavioral scientists have well documented the significance of reciprocity. I strongly recommend Juan watch Morgan Loew's report which includes an interview with Prof. Robert Cialdini.

But then there's Republican Dale Eames. At least he was a Republican last December when he was hawking raffle tickets for the LD26 Republicans' gun raffle.

Let's Turn LD26 Republican! Fundraiser 12/10/2013 in Mesa
by Dale Eames
MesaWatchDog.com*

Right now LD 26 has been taken over by the democrats. We have Ed Ableser, Juan Mendez, and Andrew Sherwood, all Obamacare and Medicaid expansion supporters, at the state level. At the Federal level Kyrsten "Obamacare" Sinema. We are a battle ground district where other districts are solid Conservative. We need the help!

LD 26 is raising money for flyers and marketing to get these Big Government people out of office that are pushing Arizona in the wrong direction. The fund raiser is a Gun Raffle where we are raffling off an AR-15 Rifle. Tickets are $10 a piece, and we need to sell many more! The raffle drawing is this Tuesday at the LD 26 Christmas party. [...]

Please send this information to your email lists, so we can sell as many tickets as possible!

Raymond Jones is the Chairman for our District. He is a man of integrity.

I don't know Raymond Jones but I'm not so sure a man of integrity would welcome Mr. Eames' endorsement. You see, I asked him, at the end of the debate, if he was behind the LD26 Republicans' gun raffle last winter. He flat out denied it. I promised him that if I found documentation showing him to be wrong on that claim that I would publish it. So here it is.

This situation is not exactly the same as 2012 LD13 House candidate "Mattress" Mitchell having lied about his residence. So, Eames will not even face the risk of removal from the ballot. Eames statement to me was a bald-faced lie. That wasn't his only instance of intentional misrepresentation.

Eames is a real estate salesman. He knows a thing or two about marketing and getting people's attention. His campaign signs prominently feature catchy, but misleading marketing copy. Trying to sell people on his claim that LD26 is not properly represented at the Capitol, Eames claims that he will show up.

But in his opening and closing statements Thursday evening, Eames also tried to sell himself as a genuine Independent.

Besides finding the smoking gun clearly showing that Eames lied to me, there's the matter of just who his campaign donors happen to be. Lester Pearce (brother of disgraced former Senate President Russell Pearce) gave Eames $500.00 for his campaign on July 5. Even Scrooge McDucey understands that a candidate is known by the company he keeps.

More than once during the debate, Eames referred to the Democrat Party.

"Democrat Party" is a political epithet used in the United States for the Democratic Party. The term has been used in negative or hostile fashion by conservative commentators and members of the Republican Party in party platforms, partisan speeches and press releases since 1940.

As evidenced by his statements and by his overall campaign strategy to deceive LD26 voters about not being a Republican, Dale Eames has overtly demonstrated deceptive character traits. Therefore one would be well advised to deeply consider the expression "caveat emptor" before even thinking about entering into any kind of business transaction with him.

The bottom line in and for the LD26 Senate and House races is that the incumbent Democrats made it clear in the debate that they are the only candidates qualified to represent Tempe, west Mesa and Salt River Indian Community voters at the Arizona Capitol in the next term.

It would be a mistake to vote for either James Roy or Chris Will. It would be a mistake of massive proportions to vote for Dale Eames.

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View a recording of the debate on the Arizona Clean Elections Commission's YouTube channel as soon as they get it posted.

* NOTE: MesaWatchDog.com appears to no longer have any content. The error message displays an explanation and suggests letting the website owner know about the problem. I'm not sure who the owner is or was, but it might have been Mr. Eames himself. You can contact Eames at, (480) 330-3485 or Dale@DaleEames.com

UPDATE           UPDATE           UPDATE

In the original post above, I incorrectly identified James Roy as the candidate who had awkwardly described the incumbents -- Ed, Juan and Andrew -- as bureaucrats. After reviewing the recording, it was Dale Eames (the candidate who bases his entire campaign strategy on intentionally deceiving voters) who made the statement. It was during his answer to a question about limiting lobbyist influence and gift giving, starting at the 54:40 mark of the video.

The video recording of the LD26 Clean Elections debate can be viewed on YouTube.

However, James Roy has demonstrated, in personal interaction with me, that he has a temperament that make his election and votes for him also a grave mistake. However, his incredibly lame attempt at a hit piece late-in-the-election season mailer hit my mailbox this afternoon. Roy goes after his Democratic opponents who voted against the resolution that put Prop 303 -- the "right to try" measure on the ballot.

Roy says the proposition is called "right to try" because it allows doctors to provide drugs that are experimental and have not completed the review process to terminally ill patients. Then Roy invokes the Republican epithet asking, "So how did our Democrat Representatives vote on this life-saving bill that happened to have a Republican sponsor?" 

If that's not demagoguery... well, at minimum it intentionally mischaracterizes the proposition. As passed by the legislature to get it on the ballot, the legislature made a list of findings. One such finding is,

3.  The standards of the United States food and drug administration for the use of investigational drugs, biological products and devices may deny the benefits of potentially life‑saving treatments to terminally ill patients.  

First, the only patients Prop 303 MIGHT provide TEMPORARY relief are those already documented to be terminally ill. Second, it's an incredible stretch to claim that UNPROVEN drugs that have not been approved by the FDA are "life-saving." Hence, the legislature correctly calling them "potentially life-saving." That's a best case scenario.

But it's also magical thinking. If a terminally ill patient receives anything more than temporary relief, I bet they'd attribute it to a "miracle" rather than to a non-FDA approved drug.

Lame, James. Very lame.