Marilou Estes is a former CUSD80 teacher. A leftist, her election strategy is to masquerade as a moderate to grab up centrist voters. Sources allege impropriety. Evidence indicates bigotry.
According to sources, Marilou Estes sought an endorsement from the Chandler teachers union, the Chandler Education Association, CEA. However, even more radical Lara Bruner, the incumbent, and Marxist Patti Serrano got far more union member votes than Estes, and hence snatched the endorsement that tells unionized school teachers who to vote for. This endorsement is likely worth 5 to 10,000 votes.
Estes, and Patti Serrano, did however get endorsed by Save Our Schools Arizona, SOS, which is the teachers union (Arizona-wide) linked organization that tried to kill school choice with their signature drive filled with lies, deceit and shenanigans.
Estes was a teacher in the Chandler Unified School District, while her husband was a principal. Incumbent Lara Bruner is a psychology teacher in the Tempe Unified District.
The Chandler Unified School District, CUSD80, has around 40,000 public school students, and falling. CUSD80 closed its doors during Covid and still puts on a mask theatre show every school day, 110F or not, as some traffic Wardens scare the kids with their face masks.
Sources alleged to us that Estes, who sits on the board of directors of the Springs community in Chandler (an HOA), is using her influence there to rid committees of qualified members who oppose her and her policies. Sources warned that Estes would likely use a similar approach if elected to the board of the Chandler Unified School District.
Estes' facebook profile, now cleansed, also indicates racial biases, which are common among the leftist suburban Karen-Democrat types. In one post Estes shares a link that disparages Asian beauty salon workers, see picture.
The other two CUSD80 board candidates are Kurt Rohrs and Charlotte Golla. Both are endorsed by the Parental Rights organization Purple for Parents. In the Chandler teachers union debate Rohrs was the only of the 5 candidates who didn't fall in line with every single demand the teachers union made.
Republican Political Strategy Failure?
In terms of political strategy, we had originally thought that Estes would divide the leftist vote with Bruner and Serrano, giving an advantage to the two Republicans, Rohrs and Golla. Yet, her yard signs can be seen in suburban neighborhoods that typically have a roughly equal number of Republicans and Democrats. Serrano and Bruner on the other hand advertise more heavily around public schools and in the traditionally left wing parts of Chandler around downtown. Estes' website states that:
I believe that all children have the right to a quality public education.
I believe all parents have the right to be a participant in the design of a quality public education.
I believe partisanship to be a polarizing element in the design of a quality public education.
Yes, it sounds like something written by a narcissist, but it also mentions the term: parents' rights. We have noted in a previous article that Rohrs uses this term as well, instead of more explicitly messaging against Critical Race Theory, CRT. In doing so, he unfortunately muddies the waters and fails the clearly distinguish himself form someone like Estes. We noted that a number of other East Valley Republican school board candidates also use the parents' rights term, sometimes misspelled as parents rights. Almost none of them explicitly speaks out against Critical Race Theory, which is a leftist code word for black supremacy. Most voters have heard about CRT, and oppose it. Parents' rights on the other hand is more cryptic, and less clear.
Republicans in general, inexplicably, have retreated from education in this election, despite having recently won in Virginia, which is now a blue state, on this very issue. This retreat from the culture wars is what has led to Republicans' electoral problems and the decay of the country. Yes, low taxes and liberty are good, but you also have to have a voting base that supports these concepts. Illegal immigrants who got amnesty, inner city section 8, and indoctrinated hipsters are voting the other way.
Since both Rohrs and Gollas run moderate campaigns, they may alienate the large right wing of the population while having to compete with Estes for the middle. Bruner and Serrano meanwhile have the left and hard left sown up due to the union endorsement and their radical politics. We shall see if Republicans manage to grab one or two school board seats previously held by the lunatic left, or if we see a similar disaster as during the August city council primaries in which Republicans failed to win a single seat and so handed over the Chandler city council to the radical left.
We reached out to Marilou Estes for comment but did not receive a response.
Comments