I do love my home state.Arizona is a mixed bag of cultures, climates, and competing political forces as diverse as any you’ll find in the country. From the pine forests of snowy, high-altitude Flagstaff to the hottest city in America, Bullhead City, from the depths of the Grand Canyon to the summit of Humphrey’s Peak, Arizona is a true study in contrast.

We do things a little differently here in Arizona, a fact lost on many political observers, even natives like myself, at times. Reminders of my home state’s stubborn independence crop up now and again though, most notably in Arizona’s political battles.

The latest example is this week’s vote on Proposition 401 in Scottsdale, AZ.

Although the final tally has yet to be announced, it appears that Prop 401, an initiative that would have banned lap dancing in Scottsdale’s strip clubs (among other things), has been shot down by Scottsdale voters.

According to the latest vote counts published on the city of Scottsdale website, ‘No’ votes outnumbered ‘Yes’ votes 15,577 (52.11-percent) to 14,316 (47.89-percent), with an unknown number of early ballots remaining uncounted.

As of Tuesday night, early ballot counts were a close split, with ‘No’ votes outpacing ‘Yes’ votes 4,294 to 4,287. The official and final vote tally is expected sometime this evening.

Barring a remarkable departure from the trend of the ballots counted so far, it would appear that supporters of Prop 401, many of whom had confidently predicted the vast majority of Scottsdale voters would come out in favor of the proposal, drastically misjudged the city’s voters.

Many Arizona conservatives are more akin to Libertarians than they are hard-right wing Republicans – a voter profile that many political analysts have come to refer to as “the Goldwater Conservative,” named for the legendary Arizona Senator and 1964 republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater.

While they may share much of the same moral orientation of the religious leaders and church organizations that supported Prop 401, for many Arizonan conservatives, conservatism stops at their own front door, so to speak.

Bob Grossfeld, a Democratic strategist and pollster, told the Republic that Prop 401 lost for the same reason that Collete Rosati, a conservative Republican, lost her primary battle with moderate state Senator Carolyn Allen in Tuesday’s primary; supporters of both Rosati and Prop 401 simply overestimated the number of social conservatives in the local voting population.

“These [Scottsdale’s voters] are not ideological conservatives,” said Grossfeld. “These are not the people who think that the jury’s still out on evolution.”

Arizona’s “Goldwater conservatives,” Grossfeld noted, are in favor of “limited government,” and such limitation “includes government that doesn’t get involved in things like young girls dancing on old men’s laps.”

Several voters interviewed by the Republic expressed views that fall right in line with Grossfeld’s analysis, and underscored that locals weren’t buying the “secondary effects” rhetoric employed by Prop 401’s backers.

“You know what? We were exposed to those (effects) for 30 years, and nobody cared,” said Lisa Haskell, a resident of the neighborhood adjacent to Scottsdale’s two strip clubs. “They were OK down here for 30 years, but now they want to high-end the city up. This was a way of getting that land.”

For voter Roc Leatherbury, the issue was even simpler; “I didn’t want ‘Big Brother’ legislating morality,” he told the Republic.

Supporters of 401, however, are having none of this line of reasoning. In their minds, the election results do not represent the true “Will of the People.” A small sampling of their comments since Tuesday’s vote indicates a sad mix of denial and accusatory rhetoric more typical of 9-11 conspiracy theorists than political campaign officers.

“There was an enormous amount of misinformation and false information circulated by the two businesses,” claimed Scottsdale Mayor Mary Manross, one of Prop 401’s most vocal supporters. “It was very difficult for any organization or community to combat that.”

“We remain cautiously optimistic but we understand the numbers,” said Yeson401 coalition chairman John Nichols, who echoed Manross’ claim about voter confusion. “I talked to any number of voters that thought a ‘No’ vote was a positive vote for us and may have misunderstood.”

The claim of voter confusion, as do most such claims, strikes me as either a load of BS, or a startling admission of ignorance and illiteracy among Prop 401’s supporters.

The ballot language of Prop 401, which has been available online for weeks now and obviously appeared on Tuesday’s ballot, makes quite clear the implications of both “Yes” and “No” votes.

The ballot clearly states that the issue is approval or disapproval of ordinance number 3658, an ordinance “further regulating sexually oriented businesses, including provisions regarding findings; definitions; licensing of operators, managers and employees; proximity between certain employees and patrons; contact between employees regularly appearing semi-nude and patrons; hours of operation; and fees and penalties.”

Following the description of ordinance 3658 quoted above, the Prop 401 ballot language states the following (italics added for emphasis):

“A ‘yes’ vote shall have the effect of approving Ordinance No. 3658, as adopted by the City Council, which changes the Scottsdale Revised Code as it relates to sexually oriented businesses.

A ‘no’ vote shall have the effect of disapproving Ordinance No. 3658, as adopted by the City Council, and retaining the current regulations as they relate to sexually oriented businesses, including the new regulations in Ordinance No. 3658 that were not referred to the ballot.”

Prop 401’s supporters would have us believe that their initiative failed only because:

A) A significant number of Scottsdale voters entered the polling place with a mistaken notion of how to vote, and then couldn’t be bothered with reading the actual ballot to make sure they got it right.
Or

B) A significant number of Scottsdale voters can’t read and so had no opportunity to correct their mistaken impression that a “No” vote would lead to tighter strip club regulations.

Personally, I give Scottsdale voters more credit than that. So does councilman Jim Lane, who noted that “You don’t have to be a Libertarian to be concerned about government intrusion into people’s lives.”

Scottsdale City Councilman Wayne Ecton, another Prop 401 supporter, also opined that “misinformation” lead to the downfall of Prop 401 and that, given more time, supporters of 401 might have been able to counter such misinformation, and “you would have seen the strip clubs not have such a good night.”

In grudgingly accepting the apparent result of the election, Ecton uttered what may be the defining viewpoint of the social conservatives who lead the push for Prop 401 and similar initiatives across our nation.

“The people spoke,” Ecton told the Republic. “I don’t know if the right people spoke.”

Yes, the right people spoke, Mr. Ecton; they just didn’t say what you wanted to hear.