If you want to feel like you need a shower after watching a debate, watch this one:
On the issues, I have to say I think Doug Ducey makes more sense to me than Andre Cherney.
Here's what I can pull from this debate:
Doug Ducey wants to be a responsible banker of the state's finances, fine. They both do. More radically (but its only slightly more radical), he wants to work with the governor to find ways to entice businesses to move to Arizona. How he would do that? Its unknown. But he definitely wants to use the office to be sort of an assistant to the Governor?
Andre Cherney wants to use the Treasurer's office to audit the state's finances and to expose wasteful state spending. I agree with Ducey on this point, I'm not sure a Democratic Treasurer playing partisan games with what is most likely going to be a Republican controlled legislature is a good idea. I think that's an over-reach and will probably be a pretty ineffective tactic.
He also states he wants to use state funds to invest in Arizona companies to promote clean energy and biotech technologies. Again, I agree with Ducey, this seems risky and not an appropriate use of state funds designated and allocated for schools.
Ideologically, I agree with much of what Cherney advocates - ensure money for schools, I wouldn't mind seeing state funds invested in clean energy and biotech and other areas to spur innovation in the state. I also agree that legislature needs better oversight.
But should the person to advocate for these sorts of things be the State Treasurer? Maybe. But he definitely shouldn't be pushing for ideological causes with state funds. If the legislature wants to allocate a slice of the state funds for these kinds of purposes, it should be decided upon there - the legislative branch working with the governor. The treasurer simply should not be risking state funds in this way.
I also disagree with Cherney that Dean Martin has done a poor job as the Treasurer. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know for sure, but my sense is that Dean Martin is a stand up guy whose done a good job in a touch economic climate. He would have been a much better candidate for governor than Jan Brewer. He gets no blame for the fact that we lost a lot of money because of the stock market crash (everything crashed - there were no safe places to put your money in 2008).
Having said that, Doug Ducey rubs me the wrong way. He's this smooth talking corporate guy who says all the right things but you wonder if he's just telling you what you want to hear. His failure to pay his taxes on time is concerning. I also have heard that there were issues with Cold Stone Creamery - too rapid growth, too many franchises too close together which hurt the individual franchise owners in order to boost corporate profits.
And the way he tried to group Cherney with President Obama and then blame Obama for our recession was dreadful. I realize it was a political ploy, but it was stupid and dishonest (I know Ducey realizes Obama did not drive our economy into the ditch, it was pretty well in the ditch when he took office).
And who cares anyways, Cherney is not Obama. Stick with the issues.
So, it seems like we have the choice between uninspiring candidates for Treasurer, which is too bad.
By the way, I endorsed Barbara Leff for Republican nomination for treasure. I stand by that. I think she would have been the the better choice between these two.
But again, I'm basing this opinion off of one flimsy interview. I'm open to your suggestions.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Wow, A journalist doing his job
I wish more journalists would ask tough questions like these of politicians of all parties. We would be much better off if they would.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Local Elections Update Part III
So, I recently watched the debates on Secretary of State debates here:
Both candidates seemed perfectly reasonable to me from the perspective of who is best qualified for the position of Secretary of State. In Arizona, however, the Secretary of State has a really good chance of becoming governor, and I have no idea who would make a better governor from this debate.
Of course, it looks like I'm voting Democratic party line (I'm persuadable on some of these candidates, though) with maybe one or two exceptions - we'll see, so I'm probably going to vote for Chris Deschene here for a couple of pretty small-sounding reasons.
First, Deschene seems like he is more sensitive to the needs of making it easier to vote - to try to outreach to more people (I don't have strong evidence of this but it came up in the debate).
Another issue that came up in the debate was the issue about how Republicans recruited sham Green candidates in hopes of diluting the vote. For me this was a triviality. These Green candidates were awful and would maybe garner a handful of votes and it would be quite doubtful that any of them would turn an election.
But Robert Robb has interesting commentary hear on Deschene:
"Democratic secretary of state candidate Chris Deschene has been attempting to beat up incumbent Republican Ken Bennett for watching silently as the Democrats and Republicans litigated over the political inner thoughts of some vagabonds. According to Deschene, Bennett should have demanded an investigation, held a denunciatory press conference and maybe even held up the printing of the general election ballots.
This likewise is deeply troubling. The secretary of state administers our elections. It is even less appropriate for the administrator of an election to be rendering public judgments about the sincerity and motivation of candidates than for a judge to do so."
This did come up in the debate. I guess I have no idea on how I feel about any of this, it all seems like such a small issue.
I did think Deschene had a stronger answer to regarding proposition 111. I have yet to study the propositions, but my first impression is that they are all bad.
Here's Robb on Prop 111:
"* According to the co-chairmen of the Proposition 111 campaign committee, Tom Simplot and Jonathan Paton, “there is nothing in the proposition that would preclude the election of an independent candidate for governor and lieutenant governor.”
But there is.
Proposition 111 plainly says: “each nominee for the office of governor shall run on a ticket as a joint candidate in the general election with the nominee for the office of lieutenant governor from the same political party as the nominee for governor.” (Emphasis added.)
“Each” means every single candidate, no exceptions. “Shall” means it's mandatory. “From the same political party” means, well, from the same political party. Independents don't belong to a political party. So, by the clear and explicit language of Proposition 111, they are ineligible for either the office of governor or lieutenant governor.
Moreover, this is a constitutional requirement that cannot be amended or fixed by legislation.
Asserting differently doesn't make it so.
* Simplot and Paton were writing in rebuttal to a column of mine that also said that it was a dumb idea to put the administration of elections into the office of governor, as Proposition 111 would provide.
Although Proposition 111 clearly says that the lieutenant governor would assume the duties of the secretary of state, Simplot and Paton say that might not end up to be the case. The Legislature would ultimately decide.
The lieutenant governor might be in charge of economic development. Or might not. The lieutenant governor might administer elections. Or might not.
In other words, Proposition 111 proponents want to establish the office of lieutenant governor now, but have the Legislature decide later what, if anything, the office would actually do.
Now there's a plan."
Deschene opposes this proposition, Ken Bennett, in the debate, declared neutrality, but seems inclined to support it.
To be honest, I could probably care less which of these candidates monitors our elections (the primary responsibility of Secretary of State), I do care, however, which of these ends up as our next governor if something should happen to the elected one. However, I have no idea which candidate would make a better governor and this debate did little to help me with that.
Watch the full episode. See more Arizona Illustrated.
Both candidates seemed perfectly reasonable to me from the perspective of who is best qualified for the position of Secretary of State. In Arizona, however, the Secretary of State has a really good chance of becoming governor, and I have no idea who would make a better governor from this debate.
Of course, it looks like I'm voting Democratic party line (I'm persuadable on some of these candidates, though) with maybe one or two exceptions - we'll see, so I'm probably going to vote for Chris Deschene here for a couple of pretty small-sounding reasons.
First, Deschene seems like he is more sensitive to the needs of making it easier to vote - to try to outreach to more people (I don't have strong evidence of this but it came up in the debate).
Another issue that came up in the debate was the issue about how Republicans recruited sham Green candidates in hopes of diluting the vote. For me this was a triviality. These Green candidates were awful and would maybe garner a handful of votes and it would be quite doubtful that any of them would turn an election.
But Robert Robb has interesting commentary hear on Deschene:
"Democratic secretary of state candidate Chris Deschene has been attempting to beat up incumbent Republican Ken Bennett for watching silently as the Democrats and Republicans litigated over the political inner thoughts of some vagabonds. According to Deschene, Bennett should have demanded an investigation, held a denunciatory press conference and maybe even held up the printing of the general election ballots.
This likewise is deeply troubling. The secretary of state administers our elections. It is even less appropriate for the administrator of an election to be rendering public judgments about the sincerity and motivation of candidates than for a judge to do so."
This did come up in the debate. I guess I have no idea on how I feel about any of this, it all seems like such a small issue.
I did think Deschene had a stronger answer to regarding proposition 111. I have yet to study the propositions, but my first impression is that they are all bad.
Here's Robb on Prop 111:
"* According to the co-chairmen of the Proposition 111 campaign committee, Tom Simplot and Jonathan Paton, “there is nothing in the proposition that would preclude the election of an independent candidate for governor and lieutenant governor.”
But there is.
Proposition 111 plainly says: “each nominee for the office of governor shall run on a ticket as a joint candidate in the general election with the nominee for the office of lieutenant governor from the same political party as the nominee for governor.” (Emphasis added.)
“Each” means every single candidate, no exceptions. “Shall” means it's mandatory. “From the same political party” means, well, from the same political party. Independents don't belong to a political party. So, by the clear and explicit language of Proposition 111, they are ineligible for either the office of governor or lieutenant governor.
Moreover, this is a constitutional requirement that cannot be amended or fixed by legislation.
Asserting differently doesn't make it so.
* Simplot and Paton were writing in rebuttal to a column of mine that also said that it was a dumb idea to put the administration of elections into the office of governor, as Proposition 111 would provide.
Although Proposition 111 clearly says that the lieutenant governor would assume the duties of the secretary of state, Simplot and Paton say that might not end up to be the case. The Legislature would ultimately decide.
The lieutenant governor might be in charge of economic development. Or might not. The lieutenant governor might administer elections. Or might not.
In other words, Proposition 111 proponents want to establish the office of lieutenant governor now, but have the Legislature decide later what, if anything, the office would actually do.
Now there's a plan."
Deschene opposes this proposition, Ken Bennett, in the debate, declared neutrality, but seems inclined to support it.
To be honest, I could probably care less which of these candidates monitors our elections (the primary responsibility of Secretary of State), I do care, however, which of these ends up as our next governor if something should happen to the elected one. However, I have no idea which candidate would make a better governor and this debate did little to help me with that.
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