Why I stay in the arena

I’ve spent more than three decades in Arizona’s public life — most of it in media, where the job is to observe, analyze, and, at times, amplify the noise. For a long time, that felt like enough. You cover the story. You move on to the next one.

But something changed.

In recent years, especially around our elections, I found myself less interested in the daily headlines and more drawn to what was happening underneath them. The arguments were getting louder, the lines sharper, the trust thinner. And I began to ask a simple question: who is actually doing the work to hold this all together?

So I stepped a little closer.

Through my job as co-director of the Arizona Democracy Resilience Network, a cross-partisan effort created by the Carter Center, I’ve had a front-row seat to something most people never see. It’s not the spectacle of politics. It’s the substance of democracy.

And it surprised me.

As a conservative, I’ve spent plenty of time in rooms where people agree with me. That’s comfortable. What’s less comfortable, and far more valuable, is sitting across from people who don’t, and realizing that on the most fundamental question — whether our elections should be safe, fair, and worthy of trust — we’re very much aligned.

Not always on the details. Not always on the rhetoric. But on the principle.

That doesn’t fit neatly into the narrative we’re often sold.

We’re told that things are broken, that no one can be trusted, that the system itself is beyond repair. For sure, there are real concerns that deserve to be taken seriously. Dismissing them outright only deepens the divide.

But here’s what I’ve seen up close: there are Republicans, Democrats, and independents across Arizona who are doing the hard, unglamorous work of strengthening the system — not tearing it down. They’re asking tough questions and they’re showing up, listening, and committing to solutions.

That’s a very different story than the one that dominates our feeds.

I’ve also seen how easy it is to walk away.

When the temperature rises, when every issue becomes a litmus test, when good people are questioned simply for participating — it’s tempting to step back. To stay in your lane. To protect your reputation rather than risk it.

But I’ve come to believe that this is exactly the moment when staying engaged matters most.

Not as a partisan exercise. Not as a performative one. But as a commitment to the long-term health of something bigger than any one election cycle.

Through my work with the Scottsdale Coalition of Today & Tomorrow and in my role as senior warden at my church, I’ve seen another side of this as well. In local communities and faith spaces, people are still capable of something that feels increasingly rare: disagreeing without dehumanizing each other.

It’s not perfect. It’s not always easy, and there are exceptions. But it’s real.

And it points to a truth we don’t talk about enough: our civic culture is not defined solely by what happens at the national level. It’s built, piece by piece, in local conversations, in community leadership, and in the choices individuals make about how they engage. That’s where the future is shaped.

So why stay in the arena? Because walking away guarantees nothing gets better. Because trust, once lost, is incredibly hard to rebuild — and impossible to rebuild from the sidelines.

And because Arizona can lead here.

We are a state that has been tested. We’ve been scrutinized, criticized, and misunderstood. But we also have something rare: a growing network of people willing to do the quiet work of democracy — together, across differences.

That’s not weakness. That’s strength. It’s the kind of leadership that lasts. And in the end, that’s what will determine whether the next generation inherits a system they can trust, or one they’ve already given up on.

I know which one I’m working toward.