The U.S. Senate race, at least so far, isn't working out the way Rep. Jeff Flake (R) had hoped. When Flake launched his campaign for the open seat, he was deemed the presumptive favorite, and given the state's partisan leanings, the six-term congressman appeared to be in good shape.
But the road has gotten surprisingly bumpy. For one thing, Wil Cardon has proven to be a tougher-than-expected challenger in the Republican primary. For another, Flake's lobbying background is drawing scrutiny and raising uncomfortable questions about his clients.
In this clip, Flake was pressed by an Arizona reporter over the weekend about having lobbied for Namibian uranium mine. The interviewer wanted to know whether Flake "either for an employer or on your own, either indirectly or directly" supported the regime in South Africa.
The congressman offered an immediate, unambiguous answer: "Absolutely not."
Unfortunately for Flake, there's reason to question the accuracy of his response.
In 1987, Flake testified before the Utah State Senate in support of a resolution expressing support for the government of South Africa while racial segregation laws were enforced -- largely to support U.S. mining interests in the region. In testimony flagged by a Democratic source, Flake opposed sanctions on the regime, arguing they only worsened the living conditions for black South Africans.
Flake said, "as far as the economic sanctions having a ... more direct impact on the black community, I overhear we tend to think of every black South African as a radical stone-throwing protestor who will stop at nothing until the government is overthrown," Flake said according to a transcript of the his testimony. "There are moderate elements there. There have been a lot of polls taken both ways. Most of them come out with about, that there are more moderates, considered moderate, than there are radicals. Those are funny terms and most of them aren't moderate, they just don't care one way or another or they don't know about the situation. It has had a dramatic impact on the black population, the biggest impact is that the companies pulling out, the American companies pulling out..."
In other words, in 1987, when human-rights activists around the globe were calling for more sanctions against South Africa's apartheid regime, there was Jeff Flake, lobbying for the opposite.
There's even an audio clip of Flake's lobbying in Utah.
What's more, National Journal's report added additional details about a related association:
[O]ne of the companies Flake worked for in the 1980s did have ties to the ruling powers of South Africa. Federal records show that Flake worked at Smoak, Shipley & Henry, a law firm that had represented the South African-controlled regime in Namibia during apartheid.
Flake worked for a group called the Namibia News Bureau, run out of the Smoak, Shipley & Henry offices. Anti-apartheid groups had criticized Smoak and Shipley in the 1980s.
A story like this can quickly turn into political quick sand for a candidate. The alleged lobbying ties to South Africa's apartheid government is scandalous enough, but for Flake to insist on the record and on the air that he had "absolutely" no ties and offered no support to the regime, when there's evidence to the contrary, suggests he's made this controversy even worse.
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It would be nice if you could say this is the ARIZONA Senate race for those of us who don't know who Flake is. :)
More importantly, there is a much bigger reason why Flake is in trouble. Richard Carmona, our candidate, is proving to be a 'rock star.' I will be doing a piece on Carmona for my (hopefully less) occasional series on 'Candidates you don't know but should' like the one I did on Heidi Heitkamp (ND Democratic Senatorial candidate who is much stronger than you'd expect.). But he's already getting so much attention in the state that Flake is by far not the 'presumptive favorite' any more, even if he gets by Cardon. They are already dead even -- and Carmona is probably half a dozen points ahead of Cardon if he wins.
This might be the race most worth watching this year. Carmona has no qualms about hitting hard, has the weird background of having been a Vietnam Vet, worked in the Sherriff's Office for 26 years, having been named "Cop of the Year" one year -- and who was also George W. Bush's Surgeon General -- and the one who complained the loudest about Bush's politicizing of science. He was a registered independent, was sought by both parties, but he's no "Blue Dog." (He's been campaigning with Al Franken at his side.)
Flake's lobbying details are not something an admitted ex-street kid from the Bronx like Carmona is going to ignore, and it's funny, but while Arizonans have more than their share of anti-Hispanic bigots, they don't tend to have that many strongly anti-black ones, who would cheer this sort of lobbying.
It never ceases to amaze me that with the development of the internet, social networking and things like Twitter. that evil, two-faced, Right-Wing, Radical, Racists seem to forget that everything they do is taking place in a fish bowl.
It's like when you were a child and you put your hands over your eyes and told yourself that no one else could see you. They think they have everyone fooled.
People like this cannot hide. None of us can. Some, like this flake Flake, are just in major denial of the fact that we, who care to pay attention, know who they are and what their lives are all truly all about.
That's because the average voter (and even more so the average Republican voter) don't look at fishbowls from one year to the next.
LOL. That is why voting Republican is easier than thinking . . . and easier than making oneself aware of the context of our existence. Thank goodness for ' reality ' TV hey ?
"when there's evidence to the contrary, suggests he's made this controversy even worse."
What i think you are trying to say is he is a liar! Go on say it! It's true. Let's start calling a lie a lie!!
Someone is really missing the boat not starting a clothing line called " Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire " for people who lie to us . . . and people who lie about us. At least when people lie to us,though, we can make ourselves aware of it and know that a lie has been told. But, it is nearly impossible to undo the effect of people telling spineless lies about us behind our backs. Which kind of lie is worse ? I leave that to you to decide. It seems that many politicians become adept at both.
To paraphrase, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, no one is entitled to their own history. As much as politicians would like to believe that wishing real hard for some aspect of their history to disappear, it won't. So when confronted by some odious segment of your past, its behooves a person to just come clean and throw themselves on the mercy of the court rather than try to ignore that it ever happened.
If Flake has just said something like, "At the time, I thought that economic sanctions would not be effective and would, in fact, hurt the very people we were trying to help. In retrospect, history has proven me wrong," he would be in a much more defensible position than he is now.
This is a democracy, and if a majority of voters think that we found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, then for all political purposes we did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Likewise the budgetary effects of reducing tax rates, the trickle-down effects of shovelling money to the ultrawealthy, etc.
Goggle Rep. Jeff Flake (R), 6 term Representative from the 6th of 9 AZ districts. Information easy to get?
Audio Clip: Parsing morality, assigning freedom to ourselves only, and accepting suppression of the less fortunate. Conservative values all. The right of reason is all that conservatives fear. The right of reason belongs to all men who cannot be persuaded otherwise. Cattle follow one another to use their tails to swat flies only the lead know the direction, the others need not reason. Cattle are conservative, to lead by predators.
Not really. Among Republicans, if anything it's a feather in his cap.
Remind me again how much Republican voters hate lying. Do they refuse to vote for a proven liar? Do they even notice?
The ultimate question for the voters of Arizona is this:
Do you really want a Senator who's a Flake?
When you ask that question, just remember Californians voted for a Kreep for Justice... :>)
Arizonans please, stop, think, there's Jan Brewer, Jon Kyl, John McCain, Sheriff Arpiao - how much more humiliated must your state get before you sheeple WAKE UP and vote these idiots out on their keister!
It should also be pointed out that at the time that Flake was lobbying for South Africa he was working with other pro-Apartheid lobbyists who went on to make big names for themselves in American politics. Two that easily come to mind are Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist.
But that was over 25 years ago and who would care about that...
When Flake was a lobbyist for South Africa in the 1980s he had company, including folks like Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist, who went on to make themselves into DC brand names.
It would not be a surprise to learn that Flake, Jack and Grover all came up together through the ranks of the College GOP when Jack and Grover were running the joint.
One thing that is clear is that they all worked to defend Apartheid during the Eighties and have work to promote similar efforts to protect the elites ever since.
Cheers
(double up posts, is a learning curve error with the comment feature of the site. I thought the earlier one did not post and so I re-entered it. And now they're both there. So it goes)