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Likely feeling the momentum from several high-profile endorsements, including U.S. Senator Jon Kyl and incoming Secretary of State Ken Bennett, it appears that Lisa James is starting to settle on staff members for her term as State GOP Chairman. Word at the Capitol is that former State Representative and one-time State Senate and U.S. Congressional candidate Laura Knaperek will be hired as Executive Director of the party.
Knaperek’s supporters say that she is generally regarded as a conservative who has run and won before. Without specifically saying what expertise Knaperek would bring to the job, they pointed out that she has been a candidate at the local and federal levels and she did raise around $150,000 for her Congressional campaign.
Her detractors point to many of these same races as negatives rather than positives. They point out that Knaperek was into the CD5 race early yet she barely out-raised former State Rep Mark Anderson ($130,000) and was crushed by both Susan Bitter-Smith and eventual nominee David Schweikert both in fundraising and at the polls. They point to her 2002 drubbing by Harry Mitchell (Mitchell won by nearly 9 points in the then GOP-leaning district), and then her 3rd-Place finish in the State House race in 2006 when she was again running in a GOP-district for a seat she had held for 8 years. They point out that many of her Congressional contributors were open-border advocates like Kevin Gibbons who ran a nasty and unsuccessful challenge to now State Senator Russell Pearce. And they are especially concerned that Knaperek relied on Nathan Sproul as a consultant for her Congressional race.
“It is basically a return of the same folks who spent a ton of money in 2006 and got killed.” said one party insider, who added “James and Sproul got more than $400,000 from the State Party in 2006 and all we got in exchange was lost Congressional and Legislative seats. No thanks. I’ve seen this movie and I know how it ends.”
No word yet on other potential staff hires, but they are likely to wait until after the actual votes are counted on Saturday.
[Editors Note: Sonoran Alliance has contacted the Lisa James campaign and has confirmed that no staffing decisions have been determined or decided should Lisa James be elected Chairman of the Arizona Republican Party.]
