State of the Forty Eighth

Just a quick note of update: today I have let it be known I will not be entering the Democratic primary for the new CD-9 seat in Arizona.  The timing is not right for me to swiftly alter all my current obligations, become unemployed, and start a campaign in January 2012.

I am having a great time with my leadership role as CEO of San Francisco AIDS Foundation, my first book The Campaign Within: A Mayor’s Private Journey to Public Leadership comes out in March, and I am a very fortunate guy. Life is very good.

It was very compelling to consider, and potentially winnable too, but in the end I needed to be pragmatic, and wanted to keep my commitments. However enticing the political opportunity, that’s more the person I am. Down the road some, who knows? But for now, I am hosting an event at my home in Tempe on January 11th for the Maricopa County Democratic Party, to help raise funds for the 2012 voter outreach programs, and I will enjoy doing things like that to help and will continue to mentor and assist others who aspire to greater public service in their lives.

The general response seems to be disappointment among some of my fellow Democrats who believe I had the best chance to capture this new seat for our party, although we know at least a few who will be pleased I am out of their way, and some happiness from the Republicans.  Remember, there is no such thing as universal opinion in politics.  Seriously, aside from those of us paying close attention,  few are really focused on this as yet. I hear it is likely there will be three thirty-something’s in the Democratic primary, nothing wrong with that of course.  I was one once.   More on that down the road.

Now I can get to buying Christmas cards, write my annual holiday letter and catch up on the rest of life.

Cheers and to those who offered it, THANK YOU for your encouragement and support!

Neil

by Seth Scott

Less than 24 hours after Jason Rose — the high-profile publicist for the Special Olympics of Arizona — made a Twitter post with language that demeaned persons with disabilities, the organization terminated its relationship with his firm, Rose+Moser+Allyn Public Relations.

Yesterday, Rose tweeted that “midgets” and “special ed” persons who live “nearby” pose “marketing challenges” for the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes.  News of Rose’s Tweet was first posted on this blog.

Tim Martin, president and CEO of Special Olympics of Arizona, said that comments like Rose’s are not tolerated by the organization.  ”We will not tolerate anyone being disrespectful toward our athletes,” he said.

I spoke with Rose on the phone earlier today.  He apologized and said that he intended to communicate the “opposite” of what was tweeted, but I encouraged him to make a more public apology to those who are the targets of these kind of insults.

Rose should be commended for at least recognizing that his words were hurtful and inappropriate.  Demeaning terms and jokes have no place in today’s society.  Hopefully others will learn from his mistake.

Martin and the Special Olympics of Arizona deserve big-time kudos for staying true to their mission, and standing firm against comments like this one.

UPDATE:  Valley news outlets are finally picking up on this story — and giving well-deserved praise to Special Olympics of Arizona for standing up for their athletes.

FOX 10: Special Olympics Arizona Splits with PR Firm over Tweet

ABC 15: Tweet angers family of Arizona Special Olympics athlete

Phoenix New Times: Jason Rose, Valley PR Bigshot, Canned by Special Olympics for Comparing “Knucklehead” to Someone With Special Needs

by Seth Scott

One of Arizona’s most successful publicists took to Twitter to explain the challenges one of his former clients, the Phoenix Coyotes, face in marketing their franchise.  Among those who Jason Rose thinks pose problems for the NHL team: “special ed” persons and “midgets.”

Making fun of those with disabilities is unacceptable.  Classless, for sure.  But it is especially cruel coming from Rose, who doubles as the publicist for the Special Olympics of Arizona.  Organizations like the Special Olympics have worked hard remove hurtful and derogatory terms, such as those used by Rose, from regular usage.  Rose’s language is what one might expect on the fourth-grade playground, not from someone who claims to be a public relations professional.

After I responded to Rose’s comment on Twitter, he apparently agreed with its inappropriateness, but rather than apologize, he deleted it, certainly hoping few would notice.  Good thing someone took a screen shot first.

Do the Special Olympics of Arizona approve of their publicist mocking those with  disabilities?

I imagine the answer is “no,” but we can only be certain when the organization publicly and emphatically denounce Rose’s comments.  Hopefully, another publicist can help them do that.

***An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified Rose as the current public relations representative for the Phoenix Coyotes.  Although Rose formerly represented the franchise, he no longer does.***

UPDATE at 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 28:  Just received an e-mail from Jason Rose, who said that he and his firm have not represented the Phoenix Coyotes for some time.  I apologize for the error.

ANOTHER UPDATE at 2:50 p.m. on Nov. 28:  Spoke with Jason Rose, who apologized for his “mangled” Tweet.  Jason said he’s a strong supporter of the Special Olympics and that he intended to have the “opposite” effect.  I’ll let you know if he or the Special Olympics of Arizona issue any kind of statement.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE at 3:15 p.m. on Nov. 28:  In an e-mail, a Phoenix Coyotes executive confirms Jason Rose is no longer a public relations consultant for the organization.  ”We do not appreciate or support his comments,” the exec writes.

Hispanic Democratic voters in State Sen. Russell Pearce’s legislative district are the target of voter suppression efforts just days before the LD-18 recall election.  Those voters are receiving recorded phone messages from a man with a Hispanic accent urging them to “protest” the two Republicans in the recall election by writing in other candidates.  The calls are paid for by a Tea Party organization whose leaders have strong ties to Pearce.

Here’s the transcript of the call:

Voters beware.  If you plan to vote this Tuesday you should know that both candidates for state senator — Russell Pearce and Jerry Lewis — are Republicans.  The only other candidate, Olivia Cortes, was forced to withdraw last month.  You can protest this one-sided election by writing in your own candidate.  This message was paid for by the Safeguard Arizona’s Future PAC because we believe a well-informed voter is the best voter.

Click here for audio of the robo-call.

Safeguard Arizona’s Future PAC is run by Tea Party activists Ron Ludders and Lee Earle.  Ludders is a prominent Pearce supporter, and runs a Tea Party web page (although, reading Ludders’ postings shows he has the spelling skills of a six-year-old).

We could call this kind of behavior sick.  Or outrageous.  Or un-American.  It is, in fact, all of those things.  But most of all – it is typical.  Pearce’s supporters will do anything to hold on to power.  They recruited a sham candidate.  Violated the law.  No person familiar with the kind of shameful tactics Pearce supporters have used throughout the recall would be surprised by how they continue to treat our Hispanic neighbors and the voting process.  These are people who claim to love America, but cannot bring themselves to respect the most American freedom of all: the right to vote.

“When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” – Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley.

By AZR

The Arizona Republic’s Dan Nowicki apparently doesn’t believe in the “duck test,” because he went through some stunning contortions recently to further Sen. Jon Kyl’s claim that Kyl never threatened to quit the deficit-reduction supercommitee over any further cuts in defense spending.

It’s not surprising to see a politician attempt to walk back a statement. Politicians do that when they make a mistake and overreach, as Kyl did in this case because he can’t afford to give up his spot on the supercommittee.

What is surprising is to see the Republic’s national political writer become a willing and unquestioning co-conspirator in that effort.

Nowicki opened his Sept. 25 column (“Kyl denies threatening to quit supercomittee”) by recalling news reports from earlier in the month that quoted Kyl telling an American Enterprise Institute event that he would be “off” the supercommittee if the panel pursued more cuts in defense spending. One of those reports ran in the Republic, but others appeared in a wide range of news media, including the Wall Street Journal, a Kyl favorite.

Then Nowicki wrote:

“Kyl’s remarks were widely interpreted at that time as a threat to quit the supercommittee. But, in an interview last week with The Arizona Republic, Kyl clarified that he was simply trying to make the point that the roughly $400 billion in defense reductions that were agreed to as part of the recent deal to increase the debt ceiling are enough.”

” ‘I didn’t threaten to leave the committee,’ said Kyl, one of six Republicans on the supercommittee and the only Arizonan. ‘I was just making an offhand remark that that’s not what I’m on the committee for.’ “

Note the language. Nowicki says Kyl’s remarks were merely “interpreted” as a threat, raising the prospect that the interpretation was wrong. Nowicki then quotes Kyl denying that he made a threat.

Apparently Nowicki thinks a bird that quacks may be “interpreted” as quacking like a duck but may not be a duck. And Nowicki gives Kyl free rein to “clarify” that he may have quacked like a duck but he isn’t a duck.

Worse, Nowicki stops there, as if his work is done.

Nowicki doesn’t ask Kyl why it took the senator from Sept. 7 and 8, when Kyl’s comments were widely reported by the news media, until Sept. 25 to issue a clarification through Nowicki. If Kyl felt that his comments were misinterpreted, why didn’t he say so right away? 

Nowicki also doesn’t ask Kyl why the senator’s own website has no clarification in its list of news releases and weekly columns. If Kyl felt that his comments were misinterpreted, why doesn’t he say so on his website? Indeed, Kyl doesn’t even bother to link to Nowicki’s Sept. 25 column.

Nowicki also doesn’t ask Kyl why the senator feels the need to clarify his remarks. A reporter for the Huffington Post offered a simple and likely explanation: Kyl couldn’t quit the supercommittee without creating “a major headache for his fellow Republicans.”

Also, Nowicki doesn’t say how he personally “interprets” Kyl’s remarks. It’s easy to find Kyl’s talk on YouTube.com, and Nowicki owes that to his readers. Nowicki also owes that much to the reporters who covered the Kyl event, along with a call to ask them for comment on Kyl’s denial.

Finally, Nowicki doesn’t bother to send Republic readers to a video of the speech to judge for themselves. Listen for the comment starting at the 8:15 point. Here’s what I hear Kyl saying:

“When we had our first meeting, the chairman asked, ‘What do we think about further defense spending?’ I said that I’m off the committee if we are going to talk about further defense sepending (cuts).”

Quack, quack.

By AZR

The Arizona Republic did a smart thing in writing an Aug. 14 “open letter” to challenge Sen. Jon Kyl to strive for “greatness” through his service on the deficit reduction supercommittee.

“Finding $1.5 trillion in budget savings essentially constitutes failure,” the paper’s editorial board wrote. “Finding a path to national economic coherence is the real goal, or should be. And no one knows that better than you.”

Kyl’s decision to retire at the end of this term frees him from re-election worries and makes it possible for him “to find common ground with your fellow committee members to attack this complex problem,” the paper concluded.

It was a call to arms for Kyl, showing the way for him to cap a solid career in the Senate by doing something great. He would join the great men and women throughout history who stepped up at key moments in the nation’s history and did something important for their country, often at the risk of personal loss.

The Republic, as a longtime fan of Kyl and supporter of him through every campaign and many political fights, was in a unique position to challenge him to strive for greatness. It was a friend challenging another friend to do something special.

What has Kyl done since then?

At first, Kyl seemed willing to take on the challenge, writing in a Republic guest column that “saving $1.5 trillion over 10 years is clearly not enough” and he “will push for as much (savings) as possible to improve our financial situation and help our fragile economy.”

At the same time, however, Kyl refused to even consider revenue increases, saying he would favor only “revenue-neutral tax reform.”

Taking revenue increases off the table sharply narrows the supercommittee’s options. All that’s left are spending cuts.

Then, on Sept. 15, Kyl took defense spending cuts off the table, too. In an extraordinary speech, he said that he would quit the supercommittee “if we are going to talk about further defense cuts.”

So much for “finding common ground,” as the Republic had hoped. Instead, Kyl is running in the direction of ideological purity, taking a position that will never pass muster on the bipartisan supercommittee.

Worse, Kyl’s “give me what I want or I’ll go home” threat is a charade, and Kyl knows it.

The law creating the supercommittee says that if the panel can’t reach agreement on spending cuts, then $500 billion will automatically  be stripped from the defense budget.

So, Kyl can quit, but that would virtually guarantee $500 billion in defense cuts.

Kyl undoubtedly would try to “spin” those cuts by saying that he opposed them, or by blaming them on Democrats. But Arizona voters should see through the charade and hold him responsible for those cuts. He’s on the supercommittee, so he owns the result. Quitting would be a coward’s way out, not a statesman’s.

If Kyl wants to protect the Pentagon from another dime of budget cuts, then he needs to step up with a plan for finding $1.5 trillion in non-defense cuts that can win the support of a majority of the supercommittee. He needs to spell out what federal programs he wants to kill, and what services he wants to sharply curtail to meet that goal. And, most important, he needs to find cuts that would win the vote of at least one Democrat on the supercommittee to get his way.

And if Kyl wants to meet the Republic’s standards, then even $1.5 billion in cuts isn’t enough. That would be failure for Kyl. The Republic’s goal, remember, is more than $1.5 trillion in budget savings, a goal that Kyl originally embraced back in August.

Instead, Kyl has been running full speed in the other direction, fueling critics’ longtime view that he’s merely an apparatchik for the Republican Party and the military-industrial complex. He has signaled that he’s willing to see the supercommittee fail for the sake of maintaining his ideological purity and that he has no intention of seeking, much less finding, common ground. No other supercommittee member has been so boldly partisan.

More important, there is no way that Kyl is going to find a compromise that would make more than $1.5 trillion in cuts from non-defense programs. That goal is impossible if both revenues and defense spending are off the table.

By the Republic’s standards, would mean that Kyl has failed. Failed.

It will be worth watching the Republic’s opinion page for the next couple of months to see whether the paper speaks out about Kyl and the direction he’s heading, taking another shot at nudging Kyl to strive for greatness instead of taking the easy way out.

The outcome of this challenge also will say a lot about the Republic’s editorial board. Will the editorial board finally recognize that Kyl isn’t close to being a great senator and never was, and that he has been overrated by the paper all these years? Or will the editorial board find some excuses for Kyl — that the Democrats refused to budge (ignoring that Kyl, too, refused to budge), or the process was flawed (ignoring the fact that Kyl voted for the legislation that set up the supercommittee)?

We won’t have long to wait to see how this turns out. The supercommittee’s deadline is Thanksgiving.

AZR, or Arizona Reader, will write from time to time on media coverage of the Arizona’s politics and public policy debates. AZR can be reached at arizona.reader@yahoo.com.

Over the course of the Phoenix mayor’s race, candidate Wes Gullett has outlined a two-pronged approach for how he’d deal with the arts community.  First, zero-out support for the arts from the general fund.  Second, require voters to approve a large, dedicated sales tax increase – in the middle of an economic recession – to finance support for the arts.

Because this plan may upset arts supporters and anti-tax advocates alike, Gullett is likely to deny he made the proposal in the first place.  So I’ll first point out that the former chief of staff to Gov. Fife Symington was videotaped articulating this proposal – twice.

Gullett first explained the two-part plan at the Citizens for Phoenix debate on May 3.  Specifically, he said

What we need to is make sure that the community is bought in to [support for the arts].  The city council shouldn’t be spending the money on it.  Rather, the voters should get to choose . . . We need to take it to the public and say, “Is this a priority?” . . . I don’t think we should be doing it at the city council level.

For video, click here and go to the 58:18 time mark.

Gullett also talked up his idea at the June 13 debate.  In that forum he said that even “in the current economic environment” . . . “we have to take [a dedicated sales tax increase] to the voters and we have to ask the community to support the arts.”

Gullett’s plan means zero dollars in city support for the arts until voters approve a sales tax increase to pay for it.  It doesn’t take a genius to understand that Gullett’s Art Tax would meet a quick and certain death in the current political environment, leaving the arts community without city support.  That could decimate the Valley’s arts community, and deliver a crushing blow to an important economic engine.  The City of Phoenix estimates that the city’s non-profits arts and cultural organizations pump $361 million into the Valley’s economy each year.

Eliminating arts funds may be popular among the Tea Party voters Gullett is trying to court.  At the federal level, Tea Partiers have sought to end federal funds for the National Endowment for the Arts.  But asking voters to approve an Art Tax during these tough economic times is a risk our arts community cannot afford.

For those interested in looking more closely at the Phoenix mayoral race, I thought I’d post the district-by-district results from the Aug. 30 primary.  A few items of note: Greg Stanton won every district, Wes Gullett finished second in all but one district, and neither Peggy Neely nor Claude Mattox managed a top place finish in their own city council districts.   A majority of the citywide votes – 55 percent to be precise – came from three districts: two, three and six.  Stanton formerly represented the largest of those three — District 6 — on the city council.

The top three finishers in each district, by percentage:

DISTRICT 1

Stanton 29
Gullett 22
Wright 16

DISTRICT 2

Stanton 27
Gullett 26
Neely 20

DISTRICT 3

Stanton 36
Gullett 22
Wright 13

DISTRICT 4

Stanton 47
Gullett 19
Wright 9

DISTRICT 5

Stanton 33
Mattox 25
Gullett 16

DISTRICT 6

Stanton 47
Gullett 20
Neely 13

DISTRICT 7

Stanton 47
Gullett 16
Mattox 12

DISTRICT 8

Stanton 46
Gullett 17
Mattox 11

In a contentious television interview only a few days ago, freshman Tea Party Rep. David Schweikert defended his decision to hold only a single town hall – or “listening session” – during Congress’ summer work period.  Schweikert and his fellow members of Congress have come under considerable criticism for holding few constituent town halls.  To be fair, Schweikert isn’t the only one falling short on the availability front.  Members of both parties aren’t listening well, and neither of Arizona’s two other freshman members had open meetings with constituents this summer.

KPNX-Channel 12’s Brahm Resnik asked Schweikert about his decision to hold only one “listening session.”  Here’s the relevant part of the interview:

RESNIK:  So, as far as giving your constituents an open meeting where they just can talk to you directly in an unscheduled fashion – one meeting – after a very contentious session of congress, you’re saying that counts as openness?

SCHWEIKERT:  Yes.

There are a few things worth noting about Schweikert’s public availability.  Resnik didn’t call him out on it, but Schweikert’s office scheduled the meeting at the last minute in Fountain Hills only after a group of local Democrats announced plans to hold a “People’s Town Hall” protest outside Schweikert’s office.  Probably looking to avoid TV news cameras capture a protest about his lack of availability, Schweikert relented.  His office had previously told others there would be no town halls over the summer work period.

The summer months are considered a work period for Congress, but Schweikert told Resnik that he’s so tired that he needs a “rest from this so-called time off.”  Schweikert and his wife vacationed in Greece last month.

During his KPNX interview, Schweikert attempted to reassure viewers that he’s held true to his promise of openness, but in doing so, made several false statements:

• Schweikert said that he’s held “dozens” of town halls.
• Schweikert said he’s held a “town hall at the dog park.”
• Schweikert said, “If you add up the number of town halls we’ve done since the beginning of the year I think we’ve now done more than the previous incumbent did in four years.”

None of these statements are actually true.  A simple search of Schweikert’s congressional Web site shows he hasn’t made himself available for even a dozen “listening sessions” – let alone the “dozens” he claims.  Schweikert never held a “town hall at the dog park.”  Although he did tell his Twitter followers that he would take his dog to a Fountain Hills dog park, it was never characterized as a “town hall” until Schweikert was forced to defend his lack of availability.  (But we certainly have to give Schweikert credit for retroactive creativity.)  And, during his four years in office, Schweikert’s predecessor certainly did hold “dozens” of Congress on Your Corner style meetings, which means the Tea Party freshman representative has many, many more to go before he surpasses that mark.

Less than eight months after the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the horrifying murder of six Tucsonans, the Pima County Republican Party is raffling off a Glock handgun eerily similar to the one Jared Lee Loughner allegedly used in the shooting.

We could act surprised.  Shocked.  Stunned that anyone in Tucson would be so crass and cruel to the families of the massacre that is still so fresh in our minds.

But the truth is that even as Tucson tries to heal, this poor taste behavior has become typical.  Just weeks ago, State Sen. Frank Antenori made reference to another Tucson woman when he told reporters, “the gun is loaded and it’s just figuring out what target to point it at and when to pull the trigger.”  Antenori, who is testing the waters on a run for Giffords’ seat, supported Jesse Kelly in 2010 because he believed Kelly would “slap Giffords around.”  Kelly himself held a fundraiser to defeat Giffords by asking donors to join him to shoot M16 assault rifles.

Antenori himself seems especially angry.  He decried the “sympathy factor” of a Giffords candidacy to national media, and even accused Democrats of using her recovery for a “political purpose.”  These are not the kind of words a unifying figure uses.

Tucson – and Arizona – has a choice to make: will we continue to elect divisive political leaders, or will we demand better?  In Tucson, will Tucson mayoral candidate Rick Grinnell, the beneficiary of the get-out-the-vote efforts the Glock raffle aims to support, denounce the fundraiser and Antenori’s statements?  That seems unlikely.  Similar to others who have stayed silent, Grinnell would surely rather avoid the ire of the far right wing than stand up to do what is right.

Politicians like Antenori may have their pulpits for now, but let’s hope that sometime soon, Arizonans demand better.

UPDATE:  This story has gone national.  In addition to the Huffington Post story I linked to in the original post, it has now been covered by CBS News, ABC News, Politico, The Hill, USA Today, New York Magazine, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and others.

The former chairman of the Pima County Republicans, Brian Miller, has done the right thing and denounced this tactless fundraiser.  No word from State Sen. Frank Antenori.