THE MARSTON CHRONICLES

Paul N. Marston graduated from Melrose High School in Melrose, Massachusetts in 1958 and then attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon for two years. When his college fund for the tuition there ran out, he transferred to the University of Arizona in Tucson, where he received a BS in Education. He taught chemistry, physics, math and science for two years before deciding that the public schools were no longer interested in truly educating anyone and he was wasting his time. In 1964, he joined Americans for Goldwater. From there, he was hired by Harry Rosenzweig to do election result analysis and write speeches for Barry Goldwater. Harry was heavily involved in the Goldwater campaign as a long time political associate and personal friend. When Harry was elected as State Chairman of the Arizona Republican State Committee, he asked Paul to come aboard as the Research Director for the state party.

The U. S. Supreme had just ruled that one man, one vote was required in state elections. The Republican Party rightly figured that reapportionment was going to change the nature of politics in Arizona forever and wanted to be on top of this process. At that time, Republicans held 35 of the 80 seats in the House of Representatives, but only 2 of 28 seats in the State Senate because each County elected two Senators regardless of population and this had to change. The Republican Party managed to arrange things so that it was highly likely that its own plan would be adopted. In the end, the Court adopted a plan that had been created by Paul N. Marston calling for 30 Senate districts and with two Representatives to run at large in those districts. No one believed Paul when he said that the Republican Party would win 16 of these Senate seats and 33 of the House seats and thus gain a majority in both Houses, but that was exactly what happened.

Paul left the State Committee to work for the Maricopa County Taxpayers Association and then went on to open his own governmental consulting firm. In 1968, Paul's election analysis showed that the Republican Party had a good chance of sweeping the Maricopa County elected offices. This County contains the entire Phoenix Metropolitan area and had then and still has over half of the entire population of Arizona. Since the Party held only one countywide office (the County Attorney) and one of the three County Supervisors, this seemed preposterous and no one believed him even though he had been spot on in the legislative elections in 1966. When Paul discovered that the Party was not even planning to field a candidate for County Recorder because it could not be won, he insisted that the Party could run the elephant and get it elected, but the Marciopa County Republican Committee decided against recruiting a candidate.

To prove he was right, Paul filed for the office and with his family's and friends' help gathered the necessary signatures to run. On the evening of his 28th birthday, Paul became the first Republican ever elected Maricopa County Recorder by a margin of over 35,000 votes. He went on to win a contested primary in 1972 and the general election by a much wider margin than in 1968. In 1974, he decided to run for Secretary of State. He eventually lost the primary race by 7,700 votes statewide when he was outspent by his opponent several times over.

He retired from elected politics and went back to being a political consultant and congressional campaign manager. He has continued his involvement in politics as an expert in analyzing election results and in maintaining computerized files profiling voters. Most of his recent work has been in the area of producing mass mailings for political and commercial purposes. Currently he is working on an analysis of each congressional district to determine which Democrat held seats can be won by a Republican candidate. His main focus in politics has always been on the nuts and bolts of how you can get someone elected. His postings will attempt to explain what is going on in politics from a strategical and tactical point of view.

Paul is a Goldwater Republican which is to say a Republican with strong libertarian leanings. To him, God's greatest gift to us has been that of free will. To do anything at any level that interferes with the exercise of our free will should be undertaken with the greatest of caution. Obviously, since a certain minority of humans choose to exercise their free will in ways that are harmful to the rest of us, we do need government to restrain them, but that should be kept to a dead minimum. The first question he always ask of any new proposal for some new undertaking, agency, law, rule or standard for government is: Is this really necessary for the health and safety for us as citizens? From this all else follows.

He also has another website devoted to the early history of American Railroading so if you have an interest in that subject, see www.oldrailhistory.com.

[ Back ]