Richard Kimball

Kimball was born in Tucson, Arizona, in 1946. He was the third son of Maxine and Bill Kimball. His father served as the Majority Leader in the Arizona State Senate and was a candidate for Governor of Arizona in 1954.{{Cite news |date=1962-05-08 |title=William F. Kimball death notice. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/arizona-republic-william-f-kimball-deat/4985095/ |access-date=2024-05-27 |work=Arizona Republic |pages=1}} Kimball attended the University of Arizona where he studied political science. He was a staff assistant to Congressman Morris Udall and worked as a press secretary for Senators Walter Mondale and Daniel Moynihan.{{Cite web|url=https://votesmart.org/about/staff|title=The Voter's Self Defense System|website=Vote Smart|language=en-US|access-date=2018-08-16}}

In 1978, Kimball was elected to represent an area of Phoenix in the Arizona Senate. In the 1982 general election, Kimball was elected to a six-year term on the Arizona Corporation Commission. In January 1984, his fellow commission members elected him the chairman of the board.{{cite web|title=Arizona Corporation Commission 72nd Annual Report|page=6|date=June 30, 1984|accessdate=June 5, 2019|url=https://azcc.gov/Divisions/Administration/Annr/Archive/AR1983-84.pdf|archive-date=December 22, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161222223420/http://www.azcc.gov/Divisions/Administration/Annr/Archive/AR1983-84.pdf|url-status=dead}} In September 1985, Kimball resigned from his position as a member of the commission.{{cite web|editor-last=Lamb|editor-first=Ginger L.|title=Arizona News Service 2014 Political Almanac|url=https://julielanley.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/2014-political-almanac.pdf|page=57|date=|accessdate=June 5, 2019|publisher=Arizona News Service|location=Phoenix, Arizona}} Governor Bruce Babbitt appointed Sharon Megdal, a member of the University of Arizona's economics faculty, to the seat.{{cite web|title=Arizona Corporation Commission 75th Annual Report|page=3|date=June 30, 1987|accessdate=June 5, 2019|url=https://azcc.gov/Divisions/Administration/Annr/Archive/AR1986-87.pdf|archive-date=December 27, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161227170915/http://azcc.gov/Divisions/Administration/Annr/Archive/AR1986-87.pdf|url-status=dead}}

After the expected Democratic candidate, Governor Bruce Babbitt, declined to run in favor of a presidential campaign, Kimball was nominated as the Democratic candidate against then-Congressman John McCain for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Barry Goldwater.{{cite book|title=Worth the Fighting For: A Memoir|first1=John|last1=McCain|first2=Mark|last2=Salter|page=135|date=September 24, 2002|accessdate=June 5, 2019|isbn=9781588362582|publisher=Random House Publishing Group|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RNYZJNYP5dwC}} His campaign was subject to negative press from The Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette. One Gazette columnist described him as displaying "terminal weirdness."Nowicki, D. & Muller, B. (2007, March 1). [https://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter6.html The Senate calls.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160123080838/http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter6.html |date=2016-01-23 }} The Arizona Republic. Retrieved September 16, 2007. McCain ultimately won the election by a margin of over 20 percent.{{cite web|last=Dendy Jr.|first=Dallas L.|editor-last=Anderson|editor-first=Donnald K.|title=Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 4, 1986|date=May 29, 1987|accessdate=June 5, 2019|publisher=Clerk of the United States House of Representatives|url=http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/1986election.pdf}} Kimball later said: "I joke that John McCain entered the Senate over my dead political body. I think that's pretty accurate."{{Cite web|url=https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2018/04/02/john-mccain-arizona-senator-campaign-richard-kimball-duke-tully/538683001/|title=The ever-ambitious John McCain rises to the U.S. Senate|website=azcentral}}

Twenty years later, Kimball commented on the campaign to a reporter from the Arizona Daily Star: "I was enormously depressed — not because I lost. It was because I spent all my time collecting money." He said that he spent the following months after the election traveling through Mexico, and then left politics to start Project Vote Smart.{{cite news|last=Innes|first=Stephanie|date=November 9, 2006|url=http://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/candidates-on-losing-end-of-election-cope-differently/article_1d29f887-3e33-5ebc-84cb-b0e865c5e2fe.html|title=Candidates on losing end of election cope differently.|newspaper=The Arizona Daily Star}}

He is currently the president emeritus of the organization Vote Smart,https://my.lwv.org/sites/default/files/leagues/wysiwyg/%5Bcurrent-user%3Aog-user-node%3A1%3Atitle%5D/0-vote_smart_for_lwv.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}} formerly known as Project Vote Smart.{{Cite web|url=https://votesmart.org/about/board|title=The Voter's Self Defense System|website=Vote Smart|language=en-US|access-date=2018-08-16}}

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{{s-ttl | title = Democratic nominee for
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Category:Democratic Party members of the Arizona House of Representatives

Category:Living people

Category:Candidates in the 1986 United States elections

Category:1946 births

Category:20th-century members of the Arizona State Legislature