Friday 29th March 2024

Home » Featured Today » Currently Reading:

One Size Doesn’t Fit All… Common Core Opponent Wins Surprise Statewide Victory

September 11, 2014 Featured Today No Comments

By DEXTER DUGGAN

PHOENIX — Last winter a woman with a low public profile was turning up at local conservative meetings around here, hoping to stir some interest in her identity and her candidacy. Was the task hopeless, like trying to sell snow shovels in Phoenix?
Her message? I’m Diane Douglas, I’m against Common Core, and I’m asking for your vote to be Arizona’s next superintendent of public instruction.
Her snowstorm came in on August 26 when the mild-seeming Republican candidate buried the GOP incumbent under a blizzard of ballots in Arizona’s primary election. It wasn’t even close.
Douglas beat State Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal, 57.99 percent to 41.27 percent. There also was less than one percent of write-in votes.
Nearly a half-million GOP votes total were cast in this primary race for schools chief. The primary had a customarily low turnout of 27.06 percent.
Huppenthal was quoted in the Phoenix-based Arizona Republic on August 27, “The voters have spoken, and it [Common Core] was the defining issue.”
Arizona GOP Gov. Jan Brewer and Huppenthal supported Common Core. When opposition to the program started to percolate here, Brewer simply changed its name to Arizona’s College and Career-Ready Standards. It was the same animal, just wearing a different skin.
Opposition to the federal education standards has become a national rallying point for conservatives and parents favoring local control. It probably doesn’t help Common Core because it’s closely identified with the deeply unpopular, completely arbitrary Barack Obama.
In an August 31 statement about her victory to The Wanderer, Douglas said, “Certainly a large part of the success of this campaign is the ever-growing opposition to federal control of our education system….Now that parents are finally becoming aware of what is being done to their children, the opposition is growing by leaps and bounds.
“The issue of this election is who controls the education of our children — the federal government, unelected bureaucrats, and a small handful of special-interest corporations, or parents through their locally elected school boards,” Douglas said.
Asked if she’d seen indications she’d do so well in the primary election, Douglas replied, “Polling we had seen indicated that we were ahead. I believe the margin of victory is indicative of the growing level of dissatisfaction on the part of moms and dads with the education methods being imposed upon their children’s classrooms.”
She said she thinks her message will resonate against the Democrat candidate in the November general election.
An August 30 Associated Press story noted challenges to Common Core in states including Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri, and Louisiana.
The story said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal “has sued the Obama administration, accusing Washington of illegally manipulating federal grant money and regulations to force states to adopt the Common Core education standards.”
On August 27, the Washington-based Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal news site said the conservative Republican Jindal’s suit “alleges that the U.S. Department of Education under President Obama used a $4.3 billion grant program and waiver policy to trap states in a federal ‘scheme’ to nationalize school curriculum.
“That plan, Jindal said, violated the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment and federal law by forcing states into adopting the Common Core education standards or risk losing billions in federal funding,” the Daily Signal story said.
Both Huppenthal and Douglas ran as pro-life Arizona Republicans, but Huppenthal hit a bump in the road during the summer when it was revealed that he’d posted snarky blog comments under pseudonyms on topics like the need for Hispanics to learn English. He apologized at a tearful June news conference.
Of the two candidates, Huppenthal had the lengthier record in public office, having been a city council member in a Phoenix suburb and both an Arizona state representative and senator before being elected to a four-year term as superintendent of public instruction in 2010.
“Over an 18-year career at the Arizona state legislature, he successfully authored and passed over 200 bills, with a substantial number of them focused on improving education in Arizona,” his biography at the Arizona Department of Education says.
Born in Indiana and brought to Arizona as a child, Huppenthal holds a master’s degree in business administration from Arizona State University.
Douglas’ campaign site (dianedouglas.com) is topped with an illustration of an old-style personal chalkboard saying, “Stop Common Core.” The site presents the philosophy that led Douglas to service on a suburban Phoenix school board:
“I began studying the American education system and the federal government’s ever-increasing intrusion into our local control since the early 1990s. I did it on my own, for my own edification rather than through a college of ‘education’ in order to add letters after my name. I’ve studied the history of our education system; the intent of our Founding Fathers for public education; curriculum trends and fads; lawsuits that have changed our education system by judicial fiat, and so much more.
“I went wherever the trail led,” she continued. “So much of what I studied ‘in theory,’ I then experienced in practice while serving on the Peoria [Ariz.] Unified School District governing board.
“The two most important duties we have, as a society, are protect our country, borders, and sovereignty; and to educate our children to perpetuate the liberty with which we have been blessed as a nation. The prior is the proper, constitutional role of the federal government, the latter is not. Currently the federal government has its roles reversed,” Douglas said.
She holds a bachelor of science degree in business and marketing from Rutgers University.

Michelle Malkin

Douglas’ campaign received a valuable boost when national blogger and columnist Michelle Malkin endorsed her on May 16. Malkin noted how widely the Common Core issue had grown nationally, from receiving only a few minutes on Fox News to being covered “wall to wall.”
Malkin celebrated at her blog as Douglas’ winning results came in on August 26: “With a shoestring budget and relentless grassroots campaigning, Diane Douglas slayed a Fed Ed giant.”
Ron Ludders, chairman of Phoenix’s Arizona Project Tea Party, told The Wanderer on August 28 that he warned Huppenthal, a longtime friend, “You’re going to have to drop your support of Common Core. This is the big issue.”
Ludders said he told Huppenthal that if he managed to win the primary, “it’s going to be a squeaker,” and he still would have to stop supporting Common Core.
“I’ve been a personal friend for a long time….I hated to see him go down in flames,” Ludders said.
As for Douglas, Ludders said, “She kept pounding on a message that was getting through….She’s a lovely woman.”

Media Blitz

One well-known GOP name that wasn’t on this year’s primary ballot was Jan Brewer, who decided to stand down as governor rather than face a possible legal dispute.
As Arizona secretary of state in 2009, Brewer ex officio succeeded Democrat Gov. Janet Napolitano when Obama chose that radical leftist to be his secretary of Homeland Security.
When this year’s elections approached, Brewer argued that because she served only a portion of Napolitano’s second gubernatorial term, then one full term of her own, she could run for another full term now without violating Arizona’s two-consecutive-term limit.
However, Brewer didn’t try to pursue that legal case, creating a vacancy on the gubernatorial ballot for the first time in 12 years, when Napolitano won in 2002.
Six battling Republicans tried to fill the post in this year’s primary, all of them claiming to be conservatives, some less plausibly than others.
Brewer waited until a few weeks before the election to endorse Scott Smith to be her successor. Smith, the former mayor of Mesa, Ariz., was understood to be among the least conservative of the Republicans. Brewer specifically cited their shared commitment to the Common Core and Medicaid expansion programs as reasons she backed Smith for her legacy.
Smith came in second in the split field with 22.03 percent of the vote, behind victorious Doug Ducey, the current state treasurer and former magnate at Cold Stone Creamery, with 37.05 percent. In a race where candidates vowed to fight massive illegal immigration, Ducey received endorsements from such figures as Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Sen. Ted Cruz.
Rob Haney, immediate past chairman of Phoenix’s Maricopa County Republican Party, told The Wanderer on August 30 that it’s hard for average voters to pick through competing claims.
“The voters are not discerning enough to work their way through the establishment-generated media blitz. Only the small percentage of well-informed conservatives knows that Gov. Brewer cannot be trusted to carry the conservative flag,” Haney said.
“She has destroyed any legacy she might have had with them through her tax increases, her backing of Obamacare through Medicaid expansion, and her backing of the federal takeover of education through her support of Common Core, among other apostasies.”

A Late Entry

The conservative gubernatorial vote also was fractured by the late entry of a former California congressman, Frank Riggs, who lacked local conservative credentials, Haney said.
“There will usually be a conservative spoiler who will come into the race as an unlikely candidate,” Haney said. “…The former conservative California congressman moved to Arizona in 2002 and had been absent from the political scene for 12 years. He established neither name recognition nor a political record in Arizona, but his entry split the conservative vote.
“The united conservative front former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas had hoped to build was destroyed before it had a chance to develop,” said Haney, a strong supporter of Thomas’ gubernatorial candidacy.

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Abortion Advocates No Longer Consider It “A Necessary Evil,” They Celebrate Killing Babies

Last week, Kamala Harris became the first vice president in U.S. history to make a public visit to an abortion clinic. Though the Democratic party’s support for abortion is nothing new, Harris’ Planned Parenthood appearance does illustrate how that support has become a flagrant celebration of abortion as a public and personal good, essential to both “freedom” and to “healthcare.” At the appearance, Harris proclaimed,  It is only right and fair that people have access…Continue Reading

Wisconsin Supreme Court says Catholic charity group cannot claim religious tax exemption

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a major Catholic charity group’s activities were not “primarily” religious under state law, stripping the group of a key tax break and ordering it to pay into the state unemployment system. Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) last year argued that the state had improperly removed its designation as a religious organization.  The charity filed a lawsuit after the state said it did not qualify to be considered as an organization…Continue Reading

Walgreens and CVS Will Start Selling Abortion Pills That Kill Babies

The two largest pharmacies in America will start selling abortion pills this month that end the lives of unborn children by starting them to death. Walgreens and CVS will both sell the abortion pills despite the fact that they kill a developing human being and have killed at least dozens of women and injured tens of thousands more. They plan to initially roll out abortion drug sales in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, California…Continue Reading

Cardinal Burke announces novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for ‘crises of our age’

VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Raymond Cardinal Burke has announced the start of a global, nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, calling on Catholics to beseech Mary’s intercession on the Church and the world in the face of the “crises of our age.” In a new endeavour published online over the weekend, Cardinal Burke announced a novena beginning in March, and culminating on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.

Texas attorney general targets Catholic nonprofit, alleges it facilitates illegal immigration

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2024 / 21:15 pm Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to shut down a Catholic nonprofit organization in El Paso based on allegations that the group may be facilitating illegal immigration, harboring immigrants who entered the country illegally, and engaging in human smuggling.  Paxton filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Annunciation House, which has operated in the state for nearly 50 years. The lawsuit asks the District Court of El Paso…Continue Reading

The King of Kings

Cindy Paslawski We are at the end of the Church year. We began with Advent a year ago, commemorating the time awaiting the coming of the Christ and we are ending these weeks later with a vision of the future, a vision of Christ the King of the Universe on His throne before us all.…Continue Reading

7,000 Pro-Lifers March In London

By STEVEN ERTELT LONDON (LifeNews) — Over the weekend, some seven thousand pro-life people in the UK participated in the March for Life in London to protest abortion.They marched to Parliament Square on Saturday, September 2 under the banner of “Freedom to Live” and had to deal with a handful of radical abortion activists.During the…Continue Reading

An Appeal For Prayer For The Armenian People

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on August 29, 2023, issued this prayer for the Armenian people, noting their unceasing love for Christ, even in the face of persecution.) + + On the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, having a few days ago celebrated the…Continue Reading

Robert Hickson, Founding Member Of Christendom College, Dies At 80

By MAIKE HICKSON FRONT ROYAL, Va. (LifeSiteNews) — Robert David Hickson, Jr., of Front Royal, Va., died at his home on September 2, 2023, at 21:29 p.m. after several months of suffering and after having received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was surrounded by friends and family.Robert is survived by me —…Continue Reading

The Real Hero Of “Sound of Freedom”… Says The Film Has Strengthened The Fight Against Child Trafficking

By ANA PAULA MORALES (CNA) —Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Homeland Security agent who risked his life to fight child trafficking, discussed the impact of the movie Sound of Freedom, which is based on his work, in an August 29 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “I’ve spent more than 20 years helping…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59)…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)