Wednesday, June 28th, 2006...11:22 pm
If a Saguaro Falls in the Desert…
I am having a great deal of trouble sleeping tonight, so don’t be suprised when you see the time stamp on this entry. Of course, no matter what time I post, I get a comment within about ten or fifteen minutes.
A lot of folks out in this here blogosphere are making a great deal out of Patty Weiss “accepting” Gabrielle Giffords’s “offer to debate.” To me, the whole thing smacks of a bit of campaign hyperbole. However, the campaigns seem to be taking this whole thing very seriously; the Giffords campaign sent me audio of the Willcox debate, and the Weiss campaign sent me the video. I just fast-forwarded to the good parts, you know, the car chases and things blowing up.
Well, aside from whatever the merits are of the spin from the two campaigns, what makes anyone think that such a debate would even be covered by our local media?
The Willcox debate featured five of the six candidates running in the Democratic primary (the always scarce Randy Graf surrogate Bill Johnson did not make it). Near as I can tell, this was the first appearance of this many of the candidates together in any forum. The only reporter that bothered to show up was from The Arizona Range News. Neither the Arizona Daily Star nor the Tucson Citizen thought to send a reporter to this event.
The “debate challenge” has been totally unnoticed by both dailies, despite the best efforts of the Weiss campaign. In fact, a quick search of both papers for the term “Weiss” or “Giffords” gives no stories over the last week or so. Given that this race is rated nationally as one of the hottest in the country (second or third, depending on who you read), it would be nice if the local papers took notice.
(The Pederson-Kyl race seems to have the same effect on the local press.)
The Star and the Citizen have both said that they will not cover press conferences or most campaign appearances. It begs the question how they plan on covering the campaigns. I have to give some credit to new Star scribe Daniel Scarpinato, who has even been to some party meetings. He seems to be eager to do a good job. I just hope his bosses let him actually cover the campaign.
18 Comments
June 29th, 2006 at 12:29 am
Ted, I’m always up about this time of night. Check the times on most of my comments on your blog. Funny thing is, I’ve always been a ‘morning person.’ Go figure.
We (the Little Colorado River Democrats) are sponsoring a debate for the Democrats running in district one on July 20 in Winslow (at the La Posada, we are targetting (pending final details) a 7-9 PM forum.
We are getting local reporters to actually serve as the panelists– if they get to ask what they think is important, it might get them to show up. Then they can write about it. I’d actually emailed an Arizona political blogger a few weeks ago about our forum, because I wanted to eventually feel that individual out about maybe being on the panel of questioners before bringing it up to the rest of the LCRD folks, but I never got a reply so we are just going the standard route and using newspaper writers. On the other hand, if one of them doesn’t show at the last minute then yours truly is the ‘backup’ for filling in on the panel, in which case we’d have a blogger.
June 29th, 2006 at 12:33 am
Way to post a new topic to get the spotlight off you comparing a low-level staffer and a CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE as former Republicans Tedski.
Can’t sleep tonight? I bet it’s those internal Giffords poll numbers that are keeping you up.
June 29th, 2006 at 7:27 am
As somebody who spent coutless hours in the Willcox HS Auditorium. I have to say that according to my sources Patty Weiss came off a litte cold and condesending. Granted that the location is the spot of many unplanned children, and of my many devious schemes… I just hope that K-HIL did not come over the speakers during the debate to make Patty feel a little upstaged.
June 29th, 2006 at 7:43 am
Tedski, I always search the Star and Citizen online thinking that I alone cannot find the political section.
I guess they enjoy ever-dwindling readership. The blogosphere owns political coverage in Southern Arizona. The newspapers are like dinosaurs caught in the tar pits.
The one bright point is the Tucson Weekly.
June 29th, 2006 at 9:35 am
Ted and Phx Kid:
Of course you all are so right abouat the coverage. I don’t follow newspaper marketing studies of what people like to read and why people gravitate to other sources of info.
But I get the impression that there are a lot of political and news junkies out there that want to read and discuss federal, state, and local politics. We are not a majority, but my impression is that a small minority of people who are active readers is a constitutency that could bring some profit. Look at the growth of the blogosphere. That should tell some news outlets that there are people who hunger for political news at least (Not that our news sources should be like blogs).
I guess I am saying that if they want to give us what we want, I would think that a lot of people want these kinds of stories, but I may be wrong.
Any news marketers out there?
June 29th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Ok…a civics lesson for you CD8dem…
Most people get their party ID from their parents when they are growing up. If a person’s family is Republican, then so are they. Most actually keep that party ID for a lifetime.
But, not always, as people age, get education, and change, people do change. It is a hard thing, studies say, to get people to change their party ID because they are invested in it and their sociological environment (peer pressure) invests them in it, and well, most people’s environments don’t change that much.
It is a big decision for some to change their party ID and it generally takes a sincere belief that the new place is right for you and the old place isn’t.
I don’t know Giffords’ personal experience of why she changed her party. I am inclined to bet strongly that she grew up in a Republican family and was one even though her value set did not conform to the values of the party. That happened with me over time. OR…the party might have really changed its value set and drove her away, like it definitely did me. You can blame it on expediency or anything else you want, but I would like to hear her story from her…not you.
Last, I have been seeing a bunch of commenters trying to weave a nice little conspiracy of how Giffords is. The newest is that she always wanted to be CD8s Congresswoman, from the day before she ran for House rep. in our state house. It follows that she changed her registration years ago because Tucson and her district was majority Democrat, that she by-passed clean elections to build a warchest for this eventual day, etc. etc.
It appears to me that if she is as rich and ambitious as you all imply, that she would have simply moved to the east-side or the foothills to live, run as a Republican and then choose to run in this Republican dominated district or for freaking state office since this is a Republican state.
Questioning why she changed and blaming it on political ambitions is truly a BS argument.
On the money that she was saving to run for this offic when she did’t run clean way way back whe she ran for office. Where is her political “warchest” of past donations?
When she ran in 2002 and 2004 and before. If you want to make warchest argument, then go find her donations from 2002 and 2004, see what she spent to stay in office, see what she banked, and then see if it is a significantly larger sum from donors than she would have gotten from the state in clean fund.
Even, then, though, it would really prove nothing.
June 29th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
The papers have so little coverage of the political races. I wonder if they will then have some editorial after the election about the sorry state of the voter participation…
June 30th, 2006 at 1:27 am
This post has been removed by the author.
June 30th, 2006 at 1:33 am
Cold and thoughtless?
You opine, we post the real story:
http://tinyurl.com/o4vnn
This three minutes is more informative than Roger’s impression of “Professor Pangloss looks into CD 8″. I only hope Roger is one of Gabby’s media consultants. Like the one who suggested she get affirmative about clean elections since Patty Weiss, and the other candidates were beating her up on that.
….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangloss
June 30th, 2006 at 6:49 am
Of course it is more informative than my long take. It is a 3 minute soundbite, a potential commercial, and a well orchestrated, poll tested, media moment.
It is a beautiful brand of negative politics that points out a simple fact without context and then ignores what others might want to know about why. The answers/reasons are not so bad.
My take from the video, in a similar fashion as you, is the quote by Patty:
“I have been fighting for this issue since the beginning of my campaign.”
Since January…like all other issues she seems to support now, but did not do much work on in her 20 years plus here in Arizona.
June 30th, 2006 at 6:54 am
Something a little more postive, from Arizona Congress Watch:
Gabrielle Giffords (D-8) has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO. Other candidates endorsed by AFL-CIO: Herb Paine (D-3), Ed Pastor (D-4), Harry Mitchell (D-5) and Raul Grijalva (D-7).
In addition, Giffords just received the endorsement of the public employees union.
Special interests, I guess, they are.
June 30th, 2006 at 8:32 am
Roger,
VOTES at the BALOT Box not Endorsements wins elections. (Just recall all the endorsements Elaine Richardson had in 2002, Howard Dean had in 2003/2004 - they really didn’t equate to votes at the ballot box did they?)
Patty was raised in Tucson: graduated from Palo Verde High school and went to the UofA. She has been in Arizona longer then 20 years!
I still would rather take someone who has been a life long Democrat who loves and knows the community over someone who up until 1999 was a registered Republican who lived (still does) a very privileged life having everything handed to her on a silver platter. WE DO NOT NEED MORE PEOPLE LIKE GABBY IN DC! Power is for the people not for the privileged select.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Cd8dem
I guess that rules out Latas. His humble custom home up in the gated Estates at High Mesa in Oro Valley is not exactly where the common folk hang out.
The one problem with your beloved Patty is that she would loose in November and the fast thinking, confident Gabby has a chance at winning.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:42 am
The other problem is that Patty Weiss is hardly poor either, my friend CD8dem. A person’s station in life does not necessarily make them elitist, snobbish, boorish, or unqualified.
In fact, I go back to the one thing many of you don’t seem to be able to answer. The endorsements are tied directly to the record…the overall record…not the few votes you dredge up to score points.
You like your candidate, I like mine. You have reasons I am sure that Patty Weiss will be a great Congresswoman and I, and the many progressive groups that have endorsed Giffords, have a suitable number of reasons to vote for her. All…based on a firm record…and not campaign rhetoric.
And to play with this a bit more. Yes, Patty has been here for over 20 years you say. Besides Tucson Tommorrow and some community boards (which are admirable…oh…couldn’t find Tucson Tommorrow on Google…just what is it???), has she ever been involved in Democrat party activities or progressive causes???? No one has yet told me of her activism.
Might this be why Giffords gets the endorsements of these groups? who fight for these issues like uworking families, environmental groups, women’s rights, public safety, etc. That just doesn’t sound elitist to me.
You are right…endorsements don’t necessarily mean voters. Some of us aim to keep focusing on voters. But shouldn’t they know that there is one candidate in this race that has supported these causes? And that it is Giffords?
June 30th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Oh…and on the Republican thing. Some of you are quite the purists here…and so be it. The party switch is a non-issue as so many have described. My take on the soc called “elitist/ambitious party switch” attack.
This elitist ambition charge stinks to high heaven. IF she was so ambitious to run for this seat then she would have kept her Republican registration years ago, moved into the Republican areas of our county, ran for statehouse in a district like Huffman has, went to Phoenix and supported all that republican bunk, and then run in this race as a republican since it is a majority republican registration.
That would have been a much easier route for an ambitious person. Her switch, it appears to me and most, comes from the heart not from the wish to be Congresswoman.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:50 am
A word for phxkid: Spellchecker.
A suggestion: back up predictions with facts that support your arguments.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Roger, you should keep repeating and repeating Gabby’s negatives until they go away.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Sorry about the speeling.
On which prediction would you like the facts?
Leave a Reply