In this post Robert Robb describes Jan Brewer in a way that aligns with my general (and uninformed) impression of her:
"There is a sense in which Brewer has proven her capacity to manage the office. After a very rough start, she shook up her staff last fall. After the highly experienced and competent Eileen Klein took over as chief of staff, the Brewer administration has marched smartly forward.
Brewer's tenacity got the sales tax increase to the ballot. Real budget cuts were enacted. The management of policy and politics has been in synch and remarkably sound, as the sharp turnaround in Brewer's political standing attests. Obviously standing up for the state against slanderous national criticism over SB 1070 turbocharged Brewer's comeback. But the turnaround was well underway before that."
Honestly, before 1070, I didn't have much of an issue with how she was running the state. And Robb's correct that she did tenaciously defend 1070, its just that this is an issue I strongly disagree with her on, and I felt her tenacity border-lined on unprofessionalism, which the beheading controversy is indicative of.
The budget was a mess and she made the best of a bad situation, and take a look at her resume, she has a deep and accomplished political career highlighted by this:
"In 1996, Brewer ran for chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, defeating incumbent Ed King, and would serve for six years on the board. She inherited a debt of $165 million, and by the end of Brewer’s tenure in 2002, she left Maricopa County in one of the strongest financial positions of any county in the nation.[2] Governing Magazine proclaimed the County as 'one of the two best managed large counties in the nation.'"
But this debate makes it clear, that she's horrible, horrible at public speaking, and a governor has to represent the state and sell ideas to the public.
"Nevertheless, public presentation is part of the governor's job and not a Brewer strong point, to put it mildly. Additionallly, Brewer's inability to master the details of policy raises the question of whether sound instincts are good enough given the difficulties facing the state. (Goddard, for example, was right and Brewer was wrong on the question of whether the state budget has been balanced.)"
Regarding Goddard, Robb has some smart suggestions for him:
"Based upon tonight's debate, Terry Goddard apparently believes the economy is his issue to ride. That's hard to believe. Jan Brewer isn't to blame for Arizona's economic problems. And neither Brewer nor Goddard is going to solve them. There are two arguments that might get Goddard back in the race: he will better protect education spending and he will check legislative excesses. These are believable claims and important to Arizona voters. At this point, anything else for Goddard is playing wiffle ball."
I agree. In the debate, Goddard's attacks on Brewer regarding the economy just didn't resonate with me. No way Brewer was to blame and I think most Arizona voters realize this. And Goddard's suggestions to fix the economy? Well he didn't have any in the debate probably because they just don't exist. Arizona's problems are deep and I don't care whose running this state, they just ain't going to be able to solve them.
But protecting education spending and putting a check on a state legislature that seems to be getting increasingly harsh and increasingly conservative is fundamentally why I'm voting for Terry Goddard.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Governor Debate
Full disclosure, I'm most definitely voting for Terry Goddard this election for a variety of reasons, but let me talk about this debate only.
First of all, the opening by Janet Brewer was a disaster. I don't think this disqualifies her necessarily, but it is pretty obvious she's not a good public speaker. What's amazing is it happened during the opening statement. This is something she should have nailed down and prepared for. It was like she threw it together at the last minute? Maybe it does disqualify her for governor. I'm really amazed by it actually.
But let's get to the substance. I thought Terry Goddard's attack, trying to blame the economy on Brewer, while understandable, was pretty unfair. Arizona is in a massive recession that is the result from a real-estate bubble that has been building up since the early 2000's. I'm not sure any state official is to blame for this. Arizona was an unlucky recipient of national and global trends. Arizona is sunny and has cheap housing. Lots of folks from California moved in. Everyone got caught up in a massive bubble, I'm not sure what we could have done about it.
Well, I do know. Arizona has been way too reliant on cheap housing as a driver for their economy for far too long and now we're suffering real consequences for it.
Terry Goddard is right that our emphasis has to be on schools. Brewer is right in asking the real questions to Goddard - where is he going to get the money. And tax schemes are not going to make up for the fact that there isn't a strong enough educated workforce in Arizona to attract businesses.
We need better schools from top to bottom. We need to do more to make Arizona an attractive place for knowledge workers to move here and then companies will follow. This isn't about low taxes, its about an environment that is desirable to live.
But I really wanted to know how Goddard would have balanced the budget without cutting kids care or all-day kindergarten (he hammered Brewer on all three points - the cuts and the failure to balance the budget). He kept claiming he would bring jobs to Arizona and grow our economy and that's how he'd pay for it, but that's hardly a short-term solution.
Goddard made some good points on the private prison issue and even the libertarian candidate agreed that private prisons should not be used to house violent criminals. Brewer needs to be held accountable for that.
All and all, I think Goddard won this debate, but I'm not sure this debate gives a voters enough information to make an informed voting decision. Other than, I thought Brewer did herself no favors. I'll have to keep digging for more.
First of all, the opening by Janet Brewer was a disaster. I don't think this disqualifies her necessarily, but it is pretty obvious she's not a good public speaker. What's amazing is it happened during the opening statement. This is something she should have nailed down and prepared for. It was like she threw it together at the last minute? Maybe it does disqualify her for governor. I'm really amazed by it actually.
But let's get to the substance. I thought Terry Goddard's attack, trying to blame the economy on Brewer, while understandable, was pretty unfair. Arizona is in a massive recession that is the result from a real-estate bubble that has been building up since the early 2000's. I'm not sure any state official is to blame for this. Arizona was an unlucky recipient of national and global trends. Arizona is sunny and has cheap housing. Lots of folks from California moved in. Everyone got caught up in a massive bubble, I'm not sure what we could have done about it.
Well, I do know. Arizona has been way too reliant on cheap housing as a driver for their economy for far too long and now we're suffering real consequences for it.
Terry Goddard is right that our emphasis has to be on schools. Brewer is right in asking the real questions to Goddard - where is he going to get the money. And tax schemes are not going to make up for the fact that there isn't a strong enough educated workforce in Arizona to attract businesses.
We need better schools from top to bottom. We need to do more to make Arizona an attractive place for knowledge workers to move here and then companies will follow. This isn't about low taxes, its about an environment that is desirable to live.
But I really wanted to know how Goddard would have balanced the budget without cutting kids care or all-day kindergarten (he hammered Brewer on all three points - the cuts and the failure to balance the budget). He kept claiming he would bring jobs to Arizona and grow our economy and that's how he'd pay for it, but that's hardly a short-term solution.
Goddard made some good points on the private prison issue and even the libertarian candidate agreed that private prisons should not be used to house violent criminals. Brewer needs to be held accountable for that.
All and all, I think Goddard won this debate, but I'm not sure this debate gives a voters enough information to make an informed voting decision. Other than, I thought Brewer did herself no favors. I'll have to keep digging for more.
Society Will be Free Riding off of Our Labors as Parents
I loved, loved, loved this article about the dangers of depopulation.
Some quotes:
" Less than 50 years ago (1957, the year Lyle Lovett was born, to be precise), the U.S. birthrate hit a record and began to decline. From 3.7 births per woman -- well over the 2.1 required to maintain a level population -- our birthrate has been falling since. It is now hovering just below replacement rate.
In Europe, birthrates are even lower. As a consequence, by 2050 the population of Europe will have fallen to what it was in 1950. Mr. Longman says this is happening all around the world: Women are having fewer children. It's happening in Brazil, it's happening in China, India and Japan. It's even happening in the Middle East. Wherever there is rapid urbanization, education for women and visions of urban affluence, birthrates are falling."
He goes in to explain the reasoning behind why? Because the economic incentives have fallen directly against raising and training our next generation. Never mind that that is one of the most important things we can do as a society.
"They're expected to get educated, get a job, find a nice neighborhood, etc. By the time they do that, they've missed their best years for reproduction. Basically, our societies have put a tax on nurture. Parents create value, but they get little of it."
I love that idea, we as a society have put a "tax on nurture". Parents create value, more than any other job in society, by far, but get little of that value back.
We are about to have our fourth child, and people wonder how we're going to do it. And we are, by the way, committed to giving each of them as good of an education as we possibly can (as any parent is).
But when its not your own child, this concern for education drops precipitously. If we truly cared about education, that would be our most important societal investment.
By the way, we just enrolled our daughter in the Chandler's Children's Choir and it is awesome. I went to a rehearsal last Tuesday and they are preparing to sing with a community orchestra and it was wonderful.
My daughter will also get an opportunity to sing patriotic songs before a Diamondbacks game as well as a lot of other community events.
Do public schools have choirs doing as much? Maybe some do, but there's no reason why they couldn't. It just takes a little extra money (when spread out across the community), a bit more of a sacrifice.
Any parent would want their child to have this kind of opportunity (or opportunities like it).
We as a family have made a decision to have more kids, make a sacrifice to raise them the best way we can. And society will mooch off our labors later. :-).
Just be sure to thank us (and every other family that has decided to raise more rather than fewer kids in a society where its increasingly difficult to do so) later.
Some quotes:
" Less than 50 years ago (1957, the year Lyle Lovett was born, to be precise), the U.S. birthrate hit a record and began to decline. From 3.7 births per woman -- well over the 2.1 required to maintain a level population -- our birthrate has been falling since. It is now hovering just below replacement rate.
In Europe, birthrates are even lower. As a consequence, by 2050 the population of Europe will have fallen to what it was in 1950. Mr. Longman says this is happening all around the world: Women are having fewer children. It's happening in Brazil, it's happening in China, India and Japan. It's even happening in the Middle East. Wherever there is rapid urbanization, education for women and visions of urban affluence, birthrates are falling."
He goes in to explain the reasoning behind why? Because the economic incentives have fallen directly against raising and training our next generation. Never mind that that is one of the most important things we can do as a society.
"They're expected to get educated, get a job, find a nice neighborhood, etc. By the time they do that, they've missed their best years for reproduction. Basically, our societies have put a tax on nurture. Parents create value, but they get little of it."
I love that idea, we as a society have put a "tax on nurture". Parents create value, more than any other job in society, by far, but get little of that value back.
We are about to have our fourth child, and people wonder how we're going to do it. And we are, by the way, committed to giving each of them as good of an education as we possibly can (as any parent is).
But when its not your own child, this concern for education drops precipitously. If we truly cared about education, that would be our most important societal investment.
By the way, we just enrolled our daughter in the Chandler's Children's Choir and it is awesome. I went to a rehearsal last Tuesday and they are preparing to sing with a community orchestra and it was wonderful.
My daughter will also get an opportunity to sing patriotic songs before a Diamondbacks game as well as a lot of other community events.
Do public schools have choirs doing as much? Maybe some do, but there's no reason why they couldn't. It just takes a little extra money (when spread out across the community), a bit more of a sacrifice.
Any parent would want their child to have this kind of opportunity (or opportunities like it).
We as a family have made a decision to have more kids, make a sacrifice to raise them the best way we can. And society will mooch off our labors later. :-).
Just be sure to thank us (and every other family that has decided to raise more rather than fewer kids in a society where its increasingly difficult to do so) later.
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