The Crux Blog: Republicans Smoke Pot Too

The Arizona GOP leadership has decided to go whole-hog against any initiative to legalize marijuana in 2016. Many are pointing out that in 2010, Prop 203, the initiative to legalize medical marijuana won by just 4,340 votes. They believe that if they can improve republican turnout just a little more, recreational marijuana can be defeated in 2016.

However, this school of thought forgets the circumstances surrounding the 2010 election.

2010 was a backlash election. It was the first opportunity since the election of Obama for people to vote. Particularly in Arizona, but throughout both red and purple states, republicans won big. In Arizona, GOP turnout was quite high. In fact, republicans won every statewide office in 2010 and in many of them, they won big.

With just over 1.75 million votes cast in 2010:

US Senate: McCain won by 413,604
Secretary of State: Bennett won by 272,803
Governor: Brewer won by 204,999
Sup. Pub. Instr.: Huppenthal won by 176,767
Treasurer: Ducey won by 173,807

It's possible that the AZ GOP reached a high-water mark in 2010. In the hotly contested US Congressional District 1 race, Paul Gosar (R) beat incumbent Ann Kirkpatrick (D) by 6 points. Knowing that he would have difficulty being reelected in a presidential cycle, Gosar quickly moved to CD4, leaving Kirkpatrick to take back her seat.

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Indeed, the GOP won everything they could possibly hope to win in 2010. In retrospect, 2010 might have been the worst possible election year to try to bring a marijuana proposition--and yet, it still passed.

The real lesson in the passage of Proposition 203 is not that it barely squeaked through because of a lack of republican turnout. The real lesson here is that in spite of a giant republican tsunami, medical marijuana STILL passed by 4,340 votes!

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In spite of what the AZ GOP leadership believes, there are many in their camp that support the legalization of marijuana to some degree! Come Wednesday, November 9th, 2016, they just might realize that in some closet, somewhere, republicans smoke pot too.

SOURCE:
http://apps.azsos.gov/election/2010/General/Canvass2010GE.pdf

#LegalizeMarijuana #Marijuana
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