Pete Hanlon likes to save a few bucks when he can. So when the 44-year-old Phoenix resident walks down the dairy aisle, he keeps an eye out for the yellow tags advertising a discount, in return for scanning his plastic grocery discount card.

On one recent trip, he saved $10 on a $90 purchase.

And while Hanlon said he figured the store was keeping track of what he buys, he didn’t realize that — for a hefty price — that sort of detailed consumer data is being leveraged by political campaigns trying to decide whether Hanlon is someone they should target as a persuadable voter or even to hit up for a contribution.

“I remember as a kid hearing that when we grew up we would have bar-codes on our arms that would be scanned before we could buy anything,” Hanlon said. “It … Read More »

It was a Saturday gathering that started with a sizzling race for chairmanship of the Arizona Republican Party, climaxed with a bare majority for the winner, then ended with the smiles and sounds of unity.

But now comes the hard part: the charting of the future of a party apparatus that boasts of electoral victories, but falls short in fundraising.

And with Tom Morrissey — late entrant in the race for the chairmanship, former U.S. marshal, Tea Party activist — now in charge of the state party, questions abound as to whether Republicans can overcome the growing can’t-be-too-far-right mood that mocks moderates and scares off big-money contributors.

A Tea Party chairman might encourage the continuation of diverting campaign money around the party structure and cause moderate Republicans to be boxed out of the party campaign machine in favor of more rigid Tea Party … Read More »