The Yuma Daily Sun is reporting on Thursday’s visit by Phoenix strip-mall developer, Jim Pederson. During his visit, Pederson the former candidate for US Senate, promoted his latest publicity stunt website as he prepares for a run at Governor. The new website, called StandUpforArizona.com, joins a growing lineup of other websites/organizations that all claim to have “the solution” to make Arizona a better place.

Just within the last two weeks, the Governor’s business supporters launched a statewide campaign called “Building A Better Arizona.” Their objective: to pressure Republican legislators to vote to put a sales tax hike on the ballot. Then there’s highly-likely Republican gubernatorial candidate, John Munger, who launched another website months ago called ImagineArizona.com.

In case your wondering about the proliferation of all the [fill-in-the-blank]Arizona.com websites, its a campaign strategy. In this day and age if you’re politically astute, you’re on the web pushing your ideas. Without making an announcement, it’s a way for them to get their ideas out in the public arena while drawing exposure to themselves. Just look at any major political candidate running for office in the last 20 years. They all released books and high profile websites prior to a run for office (Gore, Kerry, Obama). 

Pederson’s motive is pretty clear. He’s running for Governor. Even Attorney General Terry Goddard realizes this and we know he is feeling the pressure. Maybe that’s why Goddard made his pseudo-unofficial-official announcement last week in the West Valley stopping just short of resigning (as EspressoPundit covered).

And the war of websites can only escalate as Terry prepares to launch his own version of some nifty pro-Arizona website. May we suggest a a few names like KumbayaArizona.com or TheAudacityofArizona.com or maybe, IdLiketoTeachAZtoSing.com? (Maybe our readers can add a few more here.)

Getting back to the Yuma Dail Sun’s coverage, Pederson made a few statements that cannot go without comment:

The Legislature is cutting back on education funding, and if they pass the current budget, we’ll be 51st (including Puerto Rico) in per-pupil classroom funding.

Does this sound familiar? Actually, the last time we heard talk like this from Democrats, they were complaining that Arizona was ranked 49th – Not quite the bottom of the barrel but close enough to be right above Mississippi, Alabama or West Virginia. The funny thing is that there are already a dozen states all vying for the title of 49th in public education! Pederson’s comment reminds me of the character Penelope on SNL who tries to out do everyone else in the room. Apparently, being 49th wasn’t low enough for Mr. Pederson?

Another statement which really stuck out was:

We created the Web site as a way for people to mobilize others in their community who don’t have a voice. There’s a tremendous amount of pain in Arizona and people are suffering in silence.

Maybe Pederson was out of the state and country on April 15th and missed the tens of thousands of mad-as-hell Arizonans rallying against out-of-control spending, over-taxation and bailouts? Yes, there’s a lot of pain but it’s not because people are demanding more government dependency.

Finally, YDS reported:

Pederson cited recent layoffs of Arizona tax auditors as a false economy that has cost the state more than it has saved. Because there are so few auditors now, the state could be losing substantial revenue from businesses who may not be paying their fair share of taxes but Arizona will never know without an adequate staff of auditors.

Did anyone catch that? Pederson believes that too many government auditors were layed off and, as a result, the state is unable to enforce the collection of taxes from businesses! Pederson fails to realize that our revenue problem is not because of a lack of government auditors, but rather, the fact that the economy is at a nadir in the economic cycle. No number of tax auditors is going to make up the difference in Arizona’s lagging revenue stream.

Pederson’s appearance in Yuma on Thursday was nothing more than an attempt to beef up his exposure as we near the 2010 election cycle. He’s gotta tout something and blame someone for our economic ills while at the same time emphasize his alpha Democrat standing in the race against Terry Goddard.