Evan Mecham - Political Career

Political Career

Mecham first sought elected office in 1952, while still living in Ajo, with an unsuccessful run for the Arizona House of Representatives. After moving to Glendale, Mecham used the recognition gained from his television appearances to be elected to the Arizona Senate during the 1960 election. After one term as a state senator, in 1962 Mecham attempted to capture the U.S. Senate seat held by Carl Hayden, running on a platform demanding the United States withdraw from the United Nations and critical of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling limiting school prayer. The campaign first saw Mecham win a victory in the Republican primary over Stephen Shadegg, a former campaign manager for Barry Goldwater, as Goldwater remained neutral. In the general election, Mecham received only tepid support from his party due to the value of Hayden's Senate seniority in passing legislation for the proposed Central Arizona Project. Mecham was defeated in the general election with 45% of the vote.

Following his campaign against Hayden, Mecham made an unsuccessful run for state chairman of the Republican party in 1963 and unsuccessful runs for governor of Arizona in 1964, 1974, 1978 and 1982. In these four runs, Mecham only gained the Republican nomination for the 1978 election. He developed a political doctrine supporting Jeffersonian democracy and advocating elimination of income taxes, return of federal lands to state control, removing federal involvement in education, and putting welfare under state control. In 1982, Mecham wrote his first book, Come Back America, in which he discusses his earlier life and political views.

In his fifth try for governor, Mecham ran as a political outsider using his standard platform advocating political reform and tax relief. Mecham's opponent in the Republican primary, Burton Barr, had served as the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives. Barr had the support of the state GOP leadership, including Barry Goldwater and John McCain. Mecham's core support came from fellow Mormons and the ultraconservative John Birch Society. A sizable portion of the state's retired population joined this core support with Mecham's promises of tax cuts. Because of Arizona's substantial transient population—only about half of the registered voters in 1986 were living in the state in 1980—Mecham's record of previous attempts to gain elected office was not widely known by the voters. The primary election also saw the lowest voter turnout in nearly forty years due to unusual rain. Mecham overcame a fifteen-point deficit in the polls to win the Republican nomination with 54% of the vote. Barr failed to spend much of his campaign warchest in the primary, ending his campaign with over a million dollars on hand.

The general election of 1986 saw a three-way race for governor. The Democratic Party had selected the state Superintendent of Public Education, Carolyn Warner, as its candidate. Dissatisfaction among the state's business and political leadership with both candidates allowed Bill Schulz, a real estate developer and Democrat who had withdrawn from the Democratic primary due to a family illness, to obtain enough petition signatures to run as an independent candidate. Six years earlier, Schulz had nearly defeated longtime U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was slow to endorse Mecham in this race, but did so officially at a dinner in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. During the campaign, the Arizona Automobile Dealers Association's ethics committee placed Mecham's dealership on probation for being chronically tardy in responding to complaints. The Democratic split caused by Schulz's re-entry allowed Mecham's campaign to survive. Mecham won the election with a 40% plurality while Warner and Schulz received 34% and 26% respectively.