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Transcripts

June 5, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
A political analysis of the upcoming gubernatorial race;
a look at some of the rarest and most significant books and manuscripts in the southwest known as "Special Collections"
In-Studio Guests:
Sam Coppersmith, political analyst;
Chuck Coughlin, political analyst with High Ground political consulting firm

>> Michael: Tonight on "Horizon," gubernatorial candidates stump for East Valley business leaders. We'll have political analysis of the race to become the next governor of Arizona. Also we take a look at some of the rarest and most significant books and manuscripts in the southwest. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. This governor's race expected to be one of the most competitive in recent memory. Arizona gubernatorial candidates, at least some of them, got a chance to gauge their ability to round up supporters. Tuesday was the state's first straw poll for governor. In a moment we will have some analysis of how the race is shaping up just three months from the primary. First Merry Lucero brings us a look at last night's event.

>> Reporter: He had the biggest banners, the most supporters and the loudest chanting.

>> Crowd: Go Matt go! Go Matt go!

>> Reporter: So at the end of the evening, it was no surprise Matt Salmon also had the majority of the votes in the state's first gubernatorial straw poll. Salmon and the other candidates who showed spoke to East Valley business leaders.

>> Matt Salmon: I am the pro business candidate, the small business candidate, because I realize that the economic engine that drives everything in this state is small business. And I want to establish a government that responds to small business. That doesn't tax them into oblivion, that doesn't regulate them into oblivion.

>> Reporter: Several key candidates, including Janet Napolitano, skipped the event at Mesa's Centennial Hall. Campaign volunteers for Betsey Bayless passed out letters explaining her reason for not attending. Straw poll voters paid $10 each. The funds went to the chambers.

>> Craig Ahlstrom: I went imagine there will be an opportunity for the alliance to make some money. We don't expect it to be huge dollars by any means.

>> Reporter: Candidates who did attend had a chance to make their pitch to the audience.

>> Carol Springer: We have a major problem and if we want a vibrant and healthy economy in Arizona, the first thing we're going to have to do is get Arizona government's financial affairs in order. I believe that I am the only candidate -- [ APPLAUSE ] I believe that I'm the only candidate that has the experience and the knowledge, and I will tell you very frankly the political courage to make the decisions that are going to have to be made to get us back on the right track.

>> Barry Hess: The difference with the Libertarian is it's an all or nothing proposition. Principle is principle. And when I work for Ronald leg none 1980, he was the one who told me I was a Libertarian because I would not, would not, compromise on the fundamentals. When I talk about education, I'm not just talking about bigger schools, bigger classrooms, fewer kids in a classroom, higher teacher salaries. I'm also talking about reforming curriculum.

>> Mike Newcomb: Arizona has the highest high school drop-out rate in the country and we rank 49th in funding per pupil. This is because of a decade of failed, misguided public policies that have, I feel, been a direct result of an ultraconservative agenda and I believe we need to change that right now.

>> Reporter: Newcombe won the Democratic vote for the poll. Independent candidate Dick Mahoney quipped about the evening being plainly dominated by one particular candidate.

>> Richard Mahoney: Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here at the Matt Salmon rally for governor. Thank you for inviting me. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be here. And I see all the signs out there. Does one say Mahoney for governor? Anyway, well, that's fine.

>> Craig Ahlstrom: It's not a Matt Salmon event. The alliance -- we haven't endorsed Matt Salmon, we have endorsed any of the candidates. We invited them all to be here, all participate, and I imagine if this event were held on the west side or some other place, the candidate from that side might show a little bit stronger. But by no means was this organized to be a Matt Salmon event or any particular candidate.

>> Reporter: While gubernatorial straw polls like the famous high was straw poll can be make or break events for some candidates' campaigns, they are clearly unscientific, but they can be a test of how well a campaign is organized. 428 people cast votes.

>> Michael: Here to talk about this event and political strategies in the works, political analyst Sam Coppersmith and with High Ground political consulting firm political analyst Chuck Coughlin. Gentlemen, good to see both of you. That looked like it was fun. I liked the band. The band was --

>> Got applause -- a lot of applause.

>> Live music very important.

>> Michael: That's right. Now, Sam, you don't put much stock in these straw polls?

>> Sam Coppersmith: Well, straw polls are useful techniques for raising money for -- that's basically how the Iowa Democratic and Republican parties fund themselves, with the straw polls. It's a caucus state, they manage to -- both the county and state party make these into fund raising opportunities.

>> Michael: I didn't realize that.

>> Sam Coppersmith: You ought to check up in Iowa. It's fascinating. The parties, they make their money by renting spaces at their -- at their conventions and by holding these straw polls where the campaigns are kind of forced one way or another to get their people there. I'd also like to think this really wasn't the first straw poll because the previous weekend the Arizona education association had their endorsement convention, which is done by the members, where there you have a larger number, I think, of the candidates showing up, at least of the major party candidates and it was about the same number of people though they were representing a slightly larger membership than the chambers. But having said that, this was an event -- it is Matt Salmon's base n his backyard. He had to organize well to do the event. He was helped by the fact that nobody else showed up seriously, the contested, but teed perform and he did.

>> Michael: Salmon didn't organize it, but he obviously didn't object to the --

>> Chuck Coughlin: No. It's in his backyard. So everybody would expect him to do as well as he did last night. But here's, I think, the important thing. These are the people that know Matt best and they are enthused about him. They are enthused about his character and they are enthused about his campaign. I believe from what I've seen from his entire campaign structure is I think they could replicate this type of thing across the state. They're deep and wide with grass roots support across the state. Chris Bowen their campaign manager has done a fabulous job of setting up a deep and wide grass roots base and while this event was in the East Valley, it would not surprise me to see other ones in the future that -- leading up to the actual election in September where you'll see the similar type results.

>> Sam Coppersmith: That is if it turns out it really did raise money for the chambers, I think you'll seeing a lot of people doing this.

>> Michael: You will see these springing up all over the place.

>> That's right.

>> Michael: Now based on the result, should Janet Napolitano just pack it up and hand it over to Newcombe? What do you think?

>> Sam Coppersmith: I don't know. I mean, the margin of error, I think, when you're talking about -- it was Merry Lucero said 15, I think, out of -- and he won by two votes. There were like 28 people voting. Even by the somewhat loose standards of margin for error that polls can get still cited on this show, I think that's a little much.

>> Michael: What about the Attorney General's apparent rose garden strategy? I mean, she didn't show up last night, but she hasn't really been showing up a whole lot of places. Good strategy or not?

>> Sam Coppersmith: It depends. First of all, I'm going to challenge the premise. Because both Matt Sam un and Janet Napolitano showed up at the AEA convention vied for endorsed. She's there. She had a four or five-page position statement on education. The the AEA form, but I think all the candidates filled on it out. So the idea she is not taking positions on issues, it's out there, unfortunately, it requires sometime some of the reporters to read things longer than a two-page press release. Some is even single spaced so it's hard to get people to concentrate on it.

>> Michael: But, Sam, you wouldn't disagree as a candidate, she has been fairly low profile?

>> Sam Coppersmith: She has been picking and choosing the moments at which she wants to engage.

>> Chuck Coughlin: She has been picking and choosing her constituencies, and she has been carefully crafted to appear in front of audiences where she is going to be well received. I think this is a lady who has never run a combative campaign. She has never had a tough campaign for statewide office. She was handed the race last time when the Republican primaries imploded on the Democratic -- on Republican side, and she is avoiding this race this time with a guy who is an articulate candidate and could discuss the issues, and the Democratic party is missing out on an opportunity for a vigorous discussion of the issues because she is ducking.

>> Sam Coppersmith: Except, don't forget, right now this isn't like baseball stampings where a victory in May counts as of as a victory in November. You know, the Salmon campaign would like nothing more than to engage with the Democratic -- the presumptive Democratic nominee right now for two reasons. The first is, they sense that -- I mean, it goes with their strategy of where the front-runner -- we're the presumptive Republican nominee, and you don't want Janet basically, Janet Napolitano, to validate that in the Republican primary. If you look at the polling, I mean, Salmon is ahead, but there's still about 50% undecided in the Republican primary. He has a substantial lead. He is certainly the weighted bet but he hasn't cracked that nut. More voters are undecided than what it would --

>> Chuck Coughlin: Matt's never had the opportunity to run statewide. He has run in a part of Maricopa County. So the fact that some early polls have him up, I think, may be some kind of encouraging sign. What I would be -- what I would be -- happy about if I were a the Salmon campaign is they're demonstrating ability to put people on the ground, to get people excited and get them involved, something the Napolitano campaign has yet to demonstrate.

>> Although not at the AEA convention.

>> Of course.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I guess that doesn't count because it worked. I just want to know how Chuck is treating this.

>> Michael: The concern expressed by a lot of people about the Salmon campaign for the past few months is it didn't seem energized, it certainly didn't seem very well funded. Now, I read in the paper this morning where, what, claiming donations in excess of $600,000. Have some of those things been turned around?

>> Chuck Coughlin: Yeah, I think so. I think you're starting to see the wheels of the campaign start moving much more effectively. Fund raising has picked up. He announced his workforce 2010 program about two weeks ago promising a half a million jobs, new jobs, in Arizona that pay $40,000 or more. He promised to reform the economic structure in the state and focus government's energies on going after high-quality, high-paying jobs. And he's highlighted his no tax pledge. So I think the two things, what he's saying, I think what he is trying to do, is frame the campaign in the sense of "I am a no tax, private, run the economy from the private side and I'm going to be contrasted with people who will not take that pledge and maybe looking at your wallet more fondly than I am."

>> Sam Coppersmith: Let me jump on the fund raising. We can talk about the issues maybe a little bit later. One interesting thing s I think the $600,000 or $650,000 figure raised, you may want to compare that to two things. In a clean elections -- you may want to go back in the past and look at what Jane Hull had raised kind of at this point. She was a little under a million. So incumbent -- but wasn't facing a primary, didn't have to prove that point. We'll see what it gets. The second is in clean elections universe, you have to think like Hollywood. What's the difference between gross and net. And -- he has spent probably about $400,000 maybe --

>> Chuck Coughlin: No, I think he has about three-and-a-half cash on hand.

>> Sam Coppersmith: But the magic number is about 450,000 -- not how much cash on hand -- you can figure out the math. Clean elections breaks down into about 400,000 dollars in the primary and about $600,000 for the general. As soon as he spends more than $400,000, which you're going to have to do to keep up that fund raising pace, it takes money to raise money, the cap then raises for the clean election competition. So what happens --

>> Chuck Coughlin: In that individual primary.

>> Sam Coppersmith: So the one thing Betsey Bayless would have going for her, if she gets her $5 contributors in and gets that there, she doesn't just get the $400,000, she may get more as soon as the Salmon campaign goes over that primary spending limit.

>> Chuck Coughlin: That's an astute point. That's absolutely true. Matt took a pledge not to do the clean elections route. He found it to be an anathema to use taxpayers money.

>> Michael: Did he really have a choice?

>> Chuck Coughlin: No, I don't think he did.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I think he had a choice because of John McCain. You can use John McCain as the reason why you're going to participate.

>> Michael: Seems to me Matt Salmon flies a different crowd than --

>> Sam Coppersmith: I think is good news for the Democratic --

>> Chuck Coughlin: I wouldn't expect John McCain to be endorsing Janet Napolitano.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I'm just talking about playing to which particular audience. That's what's going to be interesting. That money has been spent by the Salmon campaign over a long period of time. The Bayless campaign will get hand add check with when they qualify and could wind up in an election that will be determined by who can get an early ballot into the hand of their supporters and maybe who can spring for postage, return postage and so forth. May be in a position where they have 25 or 50% for funds available for the primary than the Salmon campaign.

>> Chuck Coughlin: I don't think so, but it's a theory.

>> Michael: Betsey Bayless, Carol springer, now, Carol Springer, I think, is going to qualify for the ballot. A lot of rumors circulating that she's not going to make the publicly financed clean elections a threshold. Do they split it -- how do the dynamics of that mix work vis-a-vis Salmon?

>> Chuck Coughlin: I would definitely think that Carol being the slight libertarian/conservative leader that she is would be more -- would take more of a piece out of Matt's base potentially, particularly in Prescott and in Yavapai County, which is Carol's home district and in some areas in heavily Republican areas like Mohave County and maybe down in Cochise County. She would probably pull a certain percentage. That's something that a Salmon campaign has to think about and has to be thoughtful as they consider that. If she were not to make it, I think that would be a boon to the Salmon campaign, if we could -- if they could have a campaign that was just focused on Salmon and Bayless.

>> Michael: So the basic possibility here maybe being that Springer and Salmon divide up the conservative base, leaving the center to Betsey Bayless?

>> Chuck Coughlin: Theoretically, if Betsey -- if Carol was able to grab a bigger chunk than she ever has before.

>> Michael: Who do Democrats pull for to win this primary? Do they want Salmon --

>> Sam Coppersmith: You know, the problem is -- the problem in asking that -- the question is the way -- the weighted bet is the Matt. The reason why I think Salmon, despite his ability to crack that 50% undecided, I probably wouldn't bet against him winning the Republican primaries -- I think right now the most powerful message in Arizona politics is I'm not Jane Hull, and her numbers are worse than Symington's when he was under criminal trial. I mean, to be fair, there was probably a little rally around the flag sort of thing when the Symington trial was under way, but still, I think that that's an easier argument for Matt Salmon to make saying, I'm not Jane Hull, than it is for Betsey Bayless politically and personally and temperamentally.

>> Chuck Coughlin: Or Janet Napolitano for that matter.

>> Sam Coppersmith: I think it's an easier argument for a Democrat to make to say I'm not Jane Hull. What that basically does --

>> Chuck Coughlin: She was on deck during every fiasco --

>> Sam Coppersmith: Oh, it's a little hard to blame her for stepping in and solving the -- as far as I -- the Attorney General isn't the one signing legislation. She's not the one submitting the budget that let the alt fuels thing go through.

>> Chuck Coughlin: That was her fix, though, and her fix has cost the state almost as much as the original -- look at the settlement.

>> Sam Coppersmith: The original disaster is going to be a little more than the fix. That's a more powerful thing. What Betsey can do. It -- there are two ways to run as a Republican. You come from the right and talk more like the moderate, the George W. Bush, compassion, conservative -- I mean, he's clearly got his foot in the right wing camp, but talks about issues that tries to pull to the center. The other is to be what Betsey is where you sort of say I'm really kind of personally and professionally a moderate, but you talk to the --

>> Chuck Coughlin: But Matt -- I've known Matt since 19 -- when he first beat Jerry Gillespie out in the East Valley for state Senate. This is a guy who supported the Martin Luther King holiday in Mesa when there were two Martin Luther King holidays on the ballot. This was a guy when he was at the capital worked with the Carol Kamin in the Success by Six --

>> Sam Coppersmith: Is he proud of that or not? The story out of Prescott is that he said that's the one vote he wants back, but --

>> Chuck Coughlin: I don't think so.

>> Sam Coppersmith: Does he support it --

>> Chuck Coughlin: He has supported what he did at that time. I think he he was -- now the program is morphed and changed a lot since then, but Matt's dynamic, character is not what -- there is a popular myth that's being circulated by both Republican moderates and the Democrats that Matt Salmon is some kind of right wing, East Valley white guy who doesn't get it. If you he know the guy --

>> Sam Coppersmith: With the exception of the doesn't get it, I would use different words, but --

>> Michael: Let me shift to the Democratic primary. You've got a four-way race. You have Newcombe, OesterLO, you have obviously Alfredo Gutierrez and Janet Napolitano. Does that race shape up as one big glob for Janet Napolitano and the leftovers divided by those three or not? What are the dynamics of that?

>> Sam Coppersmith: Well, this is kind of the difference between the two sides right now, is, in the polling data that's publicly available, Janet basically has cracked 50% had on the Democratic side. The one thing that Matt hasn't been able to do, 50% are still undecided. Janet has cracked 50%. Undecideds are below that. You know, that's a very interesting position to be in heading into what will probably be a low turnout primary, to already be at 50% and to have to have Alfredo or Oesterlo or Newcombe peel votes away from you.

>> Chuck Coughlin: She is managing that campaign in a way that manages both specific constituencies, which she has appealed tool and developed relationships with, keep the whole temperature of that primary very low, keep the momentum of that primary very contained, don't let anything get out of the box, manage constituencies to a victory in September. She's doing a great job at it, I think, at a detriment to the Democratic party.

>> Michael: OesterLO has $400,000 let's assume. Alfredo Gutierrez has some very good speaking skills. Can they raise the temperature of that race in the next three months?

>> Sam Coppersmith: I bet no. I mean, I think that -- they'll raise the temperature some. I mean, people will just focus on it because it's the election. I think there will be two things going on. The first is much they will be trying to get people interested in that at the same time that the Republican primary may get more interesting. And --

>> Chuck Coughlin: If the state's major daily's choose to cover the race the way they have been covering it, they will not catch fire.

>> Michael: That's for sure. There's not a lot of --

>> Chuck Coughlin: Matt's 2010 program took three weeks to break into the newspaper up here. They're not devoting resources to covering the issues on the Democratic side or the Republican side. You know, it's a once a week room you are story that appears in the newspaper.

>> Michael: But low profile races will favor Janet Napolitano and Matt Sam 91.

>> Absolutely.

>> Michael: All right.

>> Detriment to the voters, though.

>> Michael: We are out of time. We didn't even get to the other races. See how fast that goes?

>> Chuck Coughlin: We'll come back.

>> Michael: Chuck Coughlin, thanks very much for joining us. Sam Coppersmith, good to see you. Some of the rarest and most significant documents in the southwest are currently on display in Arizona. They are part of the University of Arizona's "Special Collections". Here's a look.

>> Reporter: Father Francisco Keno is emblematic of the area we now call Southern Arizona and northern Sonora. He helped establish European culture and religion in our area and he also literally put Tucson on the map. Around 1700 the name "Tucson" first appears on a map drawn by Keno who was also an accomplished cartographer. One of Keno's early maps is now on display as part of an exhibition in the University of Arizona library's "Special Collection" section.

>> Roger Myers: Well, he was in a unique position due to his travels in this region north and then following the Gila over to the Colorado. He made a number of calculations and used that scientific evidence to compile maps and to make arguments for the map makers of the day that California at the time had been depicted an island was indeed not an island and he could show them writ slipped down into what we call Baja California today.

>> Reporter: Also on view is the field diary of Keno written and signed in his own hand documenting a journey made in 1699 to an area near Picacho Peak.

>> Roger Myers: Very rare. I don't know of another copy in existence, but the importance for us is that we have Keno's personal work in this research institute, and that is -- he was a deeply interested in the history of the region. He traveled. He wrote. He made maps. He did everything he could to make this area a different place so to have something that is of his hand that we have over in the case and the maps that he made is just a thrill to have that sort of documentation available.

>> Reporter: The Keno map and diary are among more than 20 rare books and manuscripts on display through mid-July.

>> Roger Myers: In these cases before us we have the handwritten documents. We have the signatures of the politicians, the kings, the priests, the bishops who did so much in the new world, but in this case we have a literary cornerstone. This is Cabeza Cavacas' relation of his journey from the ship wreck in Florida all the way across the Southwest.

>> Reporter: Got to be exciting as an archivist to be working with these documents.

>> Roger Myers: These are the primary historical documents so this is where curators and critics all come to begin their thought patterns and to look at what others have said and to build their own cases for their arguments.

>> Reporter: Archivist Roger Myers says the items on view are some of the crown jewels of an incredible collection consisting of hundreds of thousands of documents and photographs relevant to the southwest and western United States.

>> Bill Buckmaster: What's on display in this case isn't the oldest material in this exhibition, but it certainly is some of the most interesting. I am holding one of the 20 volumes done by the photographer Edward S. Curtis. Curtis in the early part of the 20th century documented most of the major native American tribes from Arizona to Alaska.

>> Roger Myers: There aren't a lot of these sets, and they're very expensive now to capture them on the market and we were very fortunate that these were a gift given to the library I believe back in the '60s by someone who wanted to make sure we had this important piece of information about the west.

>> Reporter: "Special Collections" is located adjacent to the University of Arizona's main library on the southwest corner of Cherry at University Boulevard on the U of A campus. "Words and Images from the Early Southwest" will be on view through July 12th.

>> Michael: For transcripts of tonight's program, and links related to topics we have covered on "Horizon," please go to Channel 8's website. You will find it at www.kaet.asu.edu. You can click on "Horizon" and then if you prefer, follow the links. Join us tomorrow night. We will take a look at the lack of businesses that make their headquarters in Arizona. A new report looks at what's causing that and how time prove Arizona's business climate. Plus we will look at internationally acclaimed glass artist Dale Chihuly's "Installations" at the Phoenix Art Museum. And Friday local journalists will be here for the wrap up on the week's top news stories. Thanks very much for being here on this Wednesday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a pleasant one. Good night.