Wednesday, March 4th, 2009...6:13 am
Pay No Attention to the Crowd Outside
There has been a long planned rally for 4 PM this afternoon called March 4 Schools (March 4, get it?). For weeks, I’ve been getting e-mails and Facebook invites, and organizers expect thousands of people to show up at the capitol lawn.
At the same time, inside the capitol, Jan Brewer will be giving a faux state of the state address. Odd scheduling, since state of the state addresses are usually mid-day affairs.
Given the scale and advanced press for the March 4 Schools, it is difficult to imagine that she or her staff didn’t know that they were scheduling the speech at the same time as the rally.
One Democratic member I talked to said that this isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened: planned Democratic press conferences, for example, will get “counter programmed” by a hastilly called gubernatorial event. It is irritating, but not necessarily dirty pool.
So, this isn’t dirty, but in this case, it ain’t smart theater. There will be the governor, addressing ninety politicians inside, while up to 10,000 angry teachers and parents will be outside denouncing the cuts that have already happened and, in all likelyhood, the program she is proposing. It is difficult to imagine that even the most “in the tank” reporter could ignore the protest when covering the governor’s speech.
I keep reading about how smart the folks around Brewer are. I guess they are, if they wanted to create a perfect demonstation of how unpopular the policies of governor and the legislature are with the public.
NB – Jan Brewer drawing by Arnulfo Bermudez.
10 Comments
March 4th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Hear, hear Ted!
March 4th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Then again if she is smarter than you think, Ted, she may use the crowd outside to her benefit.
Lately she’s been casting herself as a champion of education (as I said, ‘lately’) and she might take the opportunity to meet with some of them before the speech and use it to push her sales tax proposal as a ‘responsible’ way to save education. Then she could come across as ‘bipartisan’ and use the occasion to box the ears of some of the more recalcitrant members of her own party.
Remember, she has to run for the job in less than two years and if she is politically savvy enough she could use this as the perfect opportunity to cast herself as something other than the far right conservative that we know she actually is.
The good news is I’m not sure she’s that smart, so I expect her to ignore the crowd and give the speech like any normal pol would.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:14 am
She’s just setup the perfect photo op for reporters who will want to sensationalize the story. And what will people remember from this 2 years from now? The details of whatever she says today will long be forgotten, and all they’ll remember is that when Jan Brewer gave her first state of the state address that 10,000 people were outside protesting GOP policies.
March 4th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Sir Goodfellow,
You’re “not sure she’s that smart”?! They don’t GIVE beautician and GED diplomas away. Or did you forget, she has both!? She is a towering mass of intellect. And by towering mass, I mean Botox infused, steaming pile of narrow-minded reminder of why education is important. You tax and spenders will just have to get used to the fact that your social programs (like public education) are on their way out. And if you don’t like it, you better go get your own legislature.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
While you are all whining, remember who got us into this mess. That is our well spoken, overspending Napolitano who mortgaged our future and left the state before she could take the blame. Glad to see that she is now in charge of the Federal Government’s largest bureaucracy.
March 4th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Steve-
Yeah. Janet’s fault. Amazing that the Republicans in the legislature had nothing whatsoever to do with the irresponsible taxcutting of the last decade.
March 4th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Steve,
Napolitano left behind a proposed budget that would have avoided all the cuts.
And oh, yeah. If by ‘overspending’ you mean continuing to have a state where K-12 teachers’ salaries are in the bottom five nationally, then I suppose you might have a point. I guess you won’t consider their pay to be at the right level until they are all the way on the bottom (and then I’m sure some wonk on the right will point out that they still make more than teachers who live in a cardboard box in Guatemala or Sri Lanka.
March 4th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Now now, Eli, we all know that teachers live in trees in Sri Lanka.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Oh Ted, never underestimate the ability of some of our intrepid local media stooges to stooge for their Republican overlords. The tank, she’s a harsh taskmistress.
Steve, your characterization of our former Governor as “well-spoken” leads me to believe you saw the youtube describing our current Governor stumbling through an answer to a simple question about small businesses on KJZZ. I personally can’t think of a more compelling demonstration of the importance of investing in quality education but YMMV.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Another “reluctant taxer” Republican. Brewer’s faux commitment to freedom lasted a month.