Tony Silvain
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Tony Silvain
People's campaign
Arizona District Communist Party USA leader Joe Bernick wrote an article "Peoples campaign is a winning strategy" for the November 16, 2002 edition of People's World, covering the 2002 Raul Grijalva campaign.
- A model peoples’ campaign in Southern Arizona swept Raul Grijalva into Congress and helped elect Democrats Janet Napolitano as governor and Terry Goddard as attorney general.
- Beginning in early summer, volunteers spread out through the neighborhoods, knocking on doors, registering new voters and talking about the importance of electing candidates who will represent the interests of working people.
- The campaign for one of Arizona’s two new congressional seats concentrated on the section of the district inside metropolitan Tucson consisting of the city’s predominantly Chicano South and West sides and the predominantly white neighborhoods surrounding the University of Arizona.
- The Grijalva campaign energized volunteers and led to a much higher than usual voter turnout in minority neighborhoods. Arizona’s newly elected Governor, Janet Napolitano, squeaked through on the strength of these new voters. She is the first Democrat elected as Governor of Arizona since Bruce Babbitt won 20 years ago. The campaign helped many other progressive candidates get elected. Richard Elias, who ran a joint campaign with Grijalva, managed a good primary victory to succeed Grijalva as a progressive County Supervisor. Elias faced no opposition in the general election.
- Adelita Grijalva, Raul’s daughter, was one of two new labor-endorsed candidates for School Board in the Tucson Unified School District. She and lawyer Bruce Burke ousted right winger Rosalie Lopez, who had been the Republican candidate against Raul Grijalva in the last County Supervisor race.
- In the Sunnyside School District, another large south side district, Eva Carrillo Dong and Tony Silvain were swept into office with the support of labor and the Grijalva campaign.