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November 1, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
The Journalists Roundtable
In-Studio Guests:
Robbie Sherwood, The Arizona Republic;
Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services;
Chip Scutari, The Arizona Republic

>> Michael: It's Friday, November 1st, 2002 and the headlines this week, just days remain before voters head to the polls to select Arizona's next Governor. One of the hot button issues on next week's ballot will be the state of Indian gaming, and speaking of gaming, the man known as Joe Arizona was arrested Thursday while campaigning.

>>> Good evening, I'm Michael Grant.

>>> Michael: This is the Journalists' Roundtable.

>>> Michael Grant: Joining me to discuss these and other stories, Robbie Sherwood with the "The Arizona Republic." Howard Fischer of "Capitol Media Services". And Chip Scutari from "The Arizona Republic." It's the final weekend of campaigning for candidates. Polls show a very tight race for Governor. Robbie, how do you think the campaign shapes up the final weekend?

>> Robbie Sherwood: Well, Mike, it's going to be a squeaker. The polls all week long have shown that Janet Napolitano's double digit lead has been steadily eroding. The latest poll today shows it dead even amongst registered voters. Janet is still up three among likely voters. Other tracking and polling done by the gaming outfits show Matt taking a lead there. 2 So it -- at the very least, it's going to be -- we're not going to know on Tuesday for sure who the winner is. We might see how it's trending, somebody might be up, but there's going to be some late cast early ballots and votes from the Indian reservations that are going to come into play and may turn the race one way or another.

>> Michael: It does seem to me and we talked about this before, but it bears repeating. The large joker in the stack is the impact of the gaming props on other races and a lot of people that may turn out there are people that you really don't poll.

>>Robbie Sherwood: Absolutely. The polls are our best guess. That's all they are. They are an inefficient science in a lot of ways. One thing they don't take into account is the fact that the prop 202 gaming people have registered literally 50,000 brand new voters for the first time. Whether they show up and vote is a matter for the get-out-the-vote people. Also, two significant things, the San Carlos Apache Indian reservation and the Navajo Indian reservation have tribal presidential elections that coincide with election day, and for the first time ever, the polling places are the same. Those are people who are not going to get polled. Some of them do don't even have phones. They could come into play and skew things perhaps back Janet's way. 3

>> Michael: Howie, I've been hearing the same thing for the past 10 days or so through a variety of different sources in terms of the narrowing of the race. I'm curious about, what do you think has been happening in the past 10 days that Janet Napolitano has been doing wrong and/or, Matt Salmon has been doing right to narrow those results?

>> Howard Fischer: Matt is finally staying on message. The message is Janet is a tax-and-spend liberal. He trotted that out at the debate on Monday night. He basically -- he's got off on side trips of whether she's soft on criminals or gay adoptions. That's not the message he needs. The message he needs is to scare the hell out of people that Janet is going to raise taxes. The Republican party sent out a mailer this week to seniors. That's a strong base for Janet, saying she's looking to tax things, she says she is going to leave everything open. Your prescriptions could be taxed. Your Medicaid premiums could be taxed. Your tooth brushes could be taxed, and your food could be taxed, and that has caught hold. Janet really doesn't have a comeback. She has admitted that (A) she is going to look at everything and (B) when we asked her were the tax cuts of the '90s a mistake, she says yes. She doesn't have a defense.

>> Chip Scutari: Just to piggyback on Howie's point there, when you hosted the Clean Elections debate between 4 the gubernatorial candidates, I was really surprised. Matt, during his opening statement, I counted three other times during the debate he said -- he looked into the camera and said I will not raise taxes and my opponent will, meaning Janet, and I was really surprised that Janet didn't say in her closing statement, hey, I'm not going to raise taxes, Matt stop lying. I think she has a prevent defense and it might be back firing. One thing these polls show is Matt is gaining momentum. Two weeks ago he was down 16 points which we kind of were leery about. Now he shows momentum going his way.

>> Michael: President Bush's Sunday trip worth a couple of points?

>> Chip Scutari: Yeah, who knows. President Bush is very popular now. He is beating the war drum on Iraq. He is so fortunate to have President Bush on his side. September 27th when he did that $700 a plate fund raiser, Matt's tank was on empty. His campaign coffers were down like $26,000. That gave Matt a huge boost. The Sunday rally at Dodge Theater got front page coverage. If Matt becomes the next Governor he owes a thank you card to George W. Bush.

>> Howard Fischer: When we talk about the trend line, we could track it up to election day. We've had 28 days of voting already. One-third of the people who are likely to vote have already voted. And so, a lot of literature going out, a lot of commercials you are seeing, try getting past an ad for a ballot proposition or a candidate. It has no effect.

>> Michael: Incidentally, go over those numbers that you checked on today, because that's interesting.

>> Howard Fischer: Out of about 1.3 million voters here in Maricopa County, about a third of them requested early ballots, and more than half of those have already been returned. So assuming you are going to end up with a 48%, 50% turnout we are talking about a third of the ballots that are already in. It's going to come down to the two-thirds who show up on Tuesday who make that decision, if it's raining -- obviously, Chip and I were talking about the fact that Andy Thomas would love to have it raining because only high efficacy voters turn out that day. If the sun is shining and the birds are singing, you get a different turnout.

>> Robbie Sherwood: Our "Arizona Republic" poll which popped during the week showed good news for Janet. It's going to be a small sample, but she was running neck and neck with the early ballots that have been turned in already. And with a two to one registration advantage for Republicans, that can be seen as evidence that there is heavy crossover. She needs 18% crossover to mute the Democrats who are voting for Matt. 6 She needs 18% there. Whether or not that poll shows she gets it, I don't know. I think the trend lines heading Matt's way probably make them more nervous than -- they were happy two days ago when they saw they were doing well early ballotwise. They've got to be nervous now.

>> Chip Scutari: And I was talking to some member of the Republican party on the way here. He said that according to their count, their early ballot request, that they have a 70% to 30% margin, meaning Republicans requested almost three times as much as Democrats. So we'll see how those play out.

>> Howard Fischer: Except for the fact, as we pointed out, a lot of Republicans are not comfortable with Matt. He does scare them. Some of the hot button issues, like abortion, become a real touchstone. The fear that somehow Matt is not interested in seniors and such. It's hard to tell.

>>Robbie Sherwood: We talked about Matt's drum beat message that Janet will raise taxes. Moderate Republicans don't think that jibes with the reality of the situation. A billion dollar deficit that Matt Salmon has said that he would address without raising taxes. No candidate is going to say, well, I'll devastate state government and take away your services that you've come to expect. He's not going to say that. That's really is the flip side of the situation if you don't 7 talk about raising some taxes.

>> Michael: Speaking of presidential visits, former President Clinton down in Tucson yesterday. I understand he drew a crowd of 7,000 or so?

>> Robbie Sherwood: Yeah, in south Tucson, and I was on another assignment, but I heard it was a very energetic crowd and doing a lot to stimulate the base. Another important area for the Democrats is Pima County. They have to -- they have to rule Pima County or they won't win. There was some criticism -- Tucson has been a scene of some real criticism about who shows up where and when because Janet wasn't with Bill Clinton on this, she was campaigning in other parts of the state. The Republicans say she's ducking Bill Clinton which is why I have the duck. They gave it to me.

>> Michael: This is really good. This is a multi-roll prop. You get a lot of bang for the buck.

>>Robbie Sherwood: Matt had a problem of his own in that area because after the U of A shooting, the NRA went ahead with a rally featuring Charlton Heston, which Matt cancelled the NRA rally. In fairness, he cancelled all of his Tucson area visits to let the area mourn, but he wasn't there and you are hearing rumblings from Tucson that maybe folks at the NRA thought he should have been there.

>> Chip Scutari: And the election really, talking about south Tucson, it could come down to Pima County for Janet, rural areas for Matt, and if he gets those rural conservative Democrats to cross over, that could be the key factor on Tuesday.

>> Michael: Let's talk the mechanics issue just as early balloting, Chip, has turned it into a month-long election day.

>> Chip Scutari: Unfortunately.

>> Michael: We're starting to turn into a week-long election count with all of these early ballots bouncing around, and the ones that come in on Monday have to wait to be counted. You've also got a lot more questioned ballot activity. If you ask for one and show up in person to vote.

>>Michael Grant: Particularly on some of these early races, are we going to have any indication how they turned out before this time next week?

>> Chip Scutari: I think the early ballots are kind of a misnomer in Arizona politics. A lot of people, especially with the elections being so close between Matt and Janet, a lot of people hold their early mail-in ballots, bring it to the polls on election day, and like you said, they can't tally those up until later in the day. So a lot of people are predicting that the Governor's race won't be known until Friday, and some of these other races won't be known until later in the week because it's a close race, and all of these early ballots which come in at the last minute won't be tallied up because you can't count them until Tuesday. Which is kind of frustrating for a reporter because we're all going to be on deadline Tuesday night, and we aren't going to know who the next Governor is until later in the week.

>> Robbie Sherwood: I just want it to be over.

>> Michael: Well, I don't know, should I ask for predictions here, or is everybody going to say too close to call?

>> Howard Fischer: I'm still of the belief that Janet can eke it out. Not based on the trend line but based on the fact that many votes are in the can. I'm sure we're going to see a few last-minute interesting ads. I was waiting for the Matt Salmon, you know, ad on Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill that hasn't happened, but who knows. We have a couple days left.

>> Michael: Robbie, what do you think?

>> Robbie Sherwood: I was more confident a couple days ago, but I'm more or less with Howie. The only qualifier is that these new voters and Hispanics have to come out in a way that they haven't come out in past elections. American Indians have to come out in a way that they haven't come out since Raul Castro won. The Democratic party spent a lot of money trying to make sure that happened, and you know, if it doesn't work, you're not going to see a Democratic Governor. It can't happen. A Democratic Governor cannot win in this State, if everything they have with clean elections and the reenergized parties and the get-out-to-vote efforts, if that doesn't equal a Democratic Governor, then it's impossible.

>> Michael: Chip, what do you think?

>> Chip Scutari: Well, Michael, I'm the only one wearing a bow tie so I have to be different, of course. I'll say for the sake of argument, Salmon by two points because I think the Republican base is going to come out for him and in the end, he is going to win by a few points.

>> Michael: Speaking of the Democratic party spending money, have they stopped spending money on George Cordova in Congressional District 1?

>> Chip Scutari: Well Michael, I'm the only one wearing a bow tie so I have to be different. That's a bone of contention within the Democratic party. It's funny how that story popped up after all of Cordova's alleged business misdealings popped up in the media. The one thing we're hearing is Rick Renzi, the Republican, is pulling away with that race up in Flagstaff area.

>> Michael: I heard 8 points.

>> Chip Scutari: The Republicans, I was in Coconino county on Tuesday, say it was a double digit lead for Renzi. The Arizona Republican party is confident that they will take that huge new rural district and have it for a long time to come.

>> Michael: Let's check in on some of the other statewide races and touch on legislative stuff. Robbie, Secretary of State's race, Chris Cummiskey and Jan Brewer, Cummiskey took a shot at whether or not Jan Brewer is really in favor of more liberal voting technique.

>> Robbie Sherwood: They've been hitting each other back and forth pretty steadily. I don't know that that shot scores a lot of points for Chris, the way that the polls are trending, but that has to be one of the uglier races we've seen with some of the stuff that Brewer has come at him with, 11 about his record for showing up to votes, and his kid was sick. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago.

>> Michael: Yeah.

>> Robbie Sherwood: You know, anything that pops in the last week, you know, sometimes has a pretty weak impact because reporters are looking at it like, well, we're not going to put that in the paper, you look at the timing, if this was an issue you would have come out with it a month ago.

>> Michael: In general, I've been hearing, Chip, that all of these races are narrowing. Which of course bucks the conventional wisdom that the deeper you move on the ballot, the more party affiliation locks in and that usually favors the odds.

>>Chip Scutari: We talked about this before the show. All five major statewide races could go either way. I think we should call that the Jim Petersen effect. The head of the Democratic party pumped in $2.4 million of his own money.

>> Michael Grant: Serious dough.

>> Chip Scutari: So you know the Republicans might hold a press conference to might criticize him, but he has brought political parity to the state which we haven't had in a long time if ever. So the AG's race, Governor, Secretary of State, treasurer, school superintendent, and Howie's favorite office, the mine inspector, can go either way. I think that's the Jim Petersen effect.

>> Robbie Sherwood: The flip side of that, though, that's a major 12 investment that may not pay off at all, by the way things are trending. If Napolitano loses, Brewer, Solomon -- I mean Cummiskey/Solomon. The Democrats are in danger of losing in squeakers. Howard Fischer: Can we bring it back again? Robbie Sherwood: I'll spare you.The only one who still has a double digit lead is Terry Goddard in the Attorney General's race. I mean you might have Terry Goddard against the world.

>> Howard Fisher: That's what we have now. A Democratic attorney general and the rest of the place is filled with Republicans. It wouldn't be unusual.

>> Michael: Does Jay Blanchard continue his role as giant killer with Tom Horne or no, Jim?

>> Chip Scutari: I'm going to go out on a limb again. I think Jay Blanchard, next to Betsy Bayless, is the luckiest politician in Arizona. I'll say he ekes out a squeaker by a couple of points, even though the polls show 7 or 8 points. I know a lot of diehard Republicans who don't feel comfortable with Tom Horne.

>> Howard Fischer: The funny part is they are not comfortable with him because he used to be a Democrat. I'm not sure how voting for a real Democrat gets you even with Tom Horne.

>> Robbie Sherwood: Blanchard used to be a Republican.

>> Michael: Corporation Commission, Howie?

>> Howard Fisher: Corporation Commission has been interesting. There has been a lot of TV advertising, but the most interesting thing is in court. 13 Jim Irvin went on trial this week. He is seeking a new four-year term after his 6 years on the Commission, and what's come out so far from his own attorneys is, I guess you'd call it the stupidity defense. In other words, I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know this letter I signed was actually crafted by one of the parties, and anyway, it was the fault of the former executive director. What the problem is for the Republican party is to the extent that Irvin goes down, does he take down Jeff Hatch-Miller, does he take down Mike Gleason and you end up potentially with three Democrats on the Commission, because there are two new seats being opened? That's real tight and interesting to see.

>> Chip Scutari: Have those Republicans been campaigning together? I don't know.

>> Howard Fisher: Actually, Jim has been off on his own. It's been funny, because the two Republicans on the commission now, Marc Spitzer and Bill Mundell have sort of kind of maybe barely endorsed Irvin because they have to work with the guy, and the other two have kept a comfortable distance. Everyone sees Irvin as the albatross they don't want.

>> Michael: Certainly the 15-15 senate looms large as a big legislative question, and I think clearly the key is the highest profile race has been the Laura Knaperek-Harry Mitchell race in Tempe. What do you think?

>> Robbie Sherwood: That is a key race, although I still think that Mitchell is somewhat in the driver's seat there, just because Knaperek's base support has been withdrawn because of redistricting. She is running an aggressive race, and has hit Harry with a couple of torpedos in the last couple of Weeks. There are other races, too, like Chip said, we've been focusing mostly on the Governor's race, and so the shifting may be -- there are a couple of races where house speaker Jim Weiers is running for the senate, and he has a swing district and a candidate named Judy Kennedy, never count out a Democrat named Kennedy, who was within a couple of points from him and Robert Blendu is crossing over after one term in the House to the Senate is in the fight for his life. The Dems pick up those seats, maybe get lucky out in the East Valley. Lightning struck once with Jay Blanchard, I don't know if it strikes twice with Brent Brown, although he is running against a conservative -- maybe too conservative for Gilbert -- although I don't think there is such a thing. Maybe they could get it back into 15-15. Most likely they'll get 16-14. >> Michael: All right. Chip, do you agree?

>> Chip Scutari: No, but the show can go on.

>> Michael: Thank you very much. I was waiting for your approval on that.

>>> Michael: Along with the candidates, voters are going to find a number of issues on next Tuesday's ballot. Chief among those are three 15 different gaming propositions. Howie, what do you think the chances are that zero, bumpkis --

>> Howard Fischer: Bumpkis: Is that an official number?

>> Howard Fischer: Two of them are definitely going down, Prop 200, and 201, which is the track's measure are both going down. In fact, all of the ads for both of those no longer try to push them. They are both firing at Prop 202 which is the 17-tribe initiative, very close to what Jane Hull negotiated and couldn't get the legislature to ratify. Everything we've seen shows that hanging on just by its fingernails. But the momentum has been going against it. All of the attacks funded by these two groups-- We had a press conference today, Senator Jon Kyl rips John Shadegg and Jeff Flake saying kill all three of them. These people don't like Indian gaming at all, so people may say you are not trying to keep things at status quo, you are trying to undermine Indian gaming, but those names carry a certain group of people. And there are some Republicans who would say, well, otherwise they like the idea of Indian gaming, they think it's right for the Indians, but if Jon Kyl thinks it's a bad idea, it goes down.

>> Michael: One thing I've never understood, I think obviously the tracks want to encourage people to vote no on the other two. I truly have not understood the rationale for the Colorado river Indian tribe. It wants to succeed on 200, but its negative campaign on 202 has been brutal.

>> Chip Scutari: It's one of the things I can't figure out about Arizona politics. Their campaign has been disjointed and been all over the place. I don't know how they expect to win. I really don't. I haven't been covering it that closely, but the thing that strikes me, if Prop 202 can't win this election with what did they spend, $18 million?

>> Howard Fischer: They are up to $21 million up to this morning.

>> Chip Scutari: If they are going to spend $21 million and can't convince people to vote their way -- especially with the threat of Matt Salmon, a conservative being the next governor,so he's going to be negotiating the next gaming compact, it's got to drive people to the polls. If these people don't go to the poll this time around, they are never going to go.

>> Howard Fischer: One of the interesting things is to talk about what happens next, whether it's Matt Salmon or Janet Napolitano. You're in an interesting situation here. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the Governor is in fact free to sign a new gaming compact, but the order hasn't come down. If that order comes down before December 31st, that technically allows Jane Hull to sign the deal that she would have signed had the legislature approved it. I talked to both Salmon's people and Napolitano's people today, 17 both of them want want to start with 202 as the base. Salmon doesn't like the 23 year term. Both want revenue sharing. After all of this, we may end up with something close to Prop 202 next year when the new Governor gets a chance to negotiate it.

>> Michael: Robbie, I was driving through downtown Phoenix yesterday and I glanced over and I saw Joe Arizona in pink underwear in pink underwear and a DPS shirt, and I thought gosh, when did he become a DPS officer? I guess that was a problem.

>> Robbie Sherwood: Yeah, the sheriff didn't like that very much, and called up DPS, I guess, or somebody called DPS, I don't know if it was the sheriff. That's the rumor, and they slapped Joe Arizona with a citation for impersonating a police officer. I'd love to see this go before the jury. >> Michael: I was genuinely confused, I really was.

>> Robbie Sherwood: Well, it was Halloween.

>>Chip Scutari: He was a dead ringer for Arpaio with his pink shorts. Who can get it wrong?

>>Howard Fischer: This is the thing. The funny thing is, it wasn't even the DPS that cited him. So the DPS came, said forget it.

>> Michael: Doesn't look like one of our guy's to us.

>> Howard Fischer: You have the sheriff's department signing a DPS citation report for impersonating not a police officer, but impersonating specifically a DPS officer. The law says in order to be guilty, not only is it a question of you have to wear the uniform, but you have to do it with the intent of deceiving someone. The last time I was pulled over and this happens a lot with my led foot, I do not remember the officer getting off the motorcycle and seeing the pink shorts and skinny legs. Somehow, Arpaio and Hendershott who was directing this thing said he was wearing the official DPS patch and that made it a uniform. Well, I called DPS, and I said, Steve, can you wear the DPS patch and he said of course you can. There is nothing illegal about having a DPS patch, nothing illegal about wearing it. The question is are you trying to portray yourself as an officer. He was wearing these tin badges that you can buy over at Sky Harbor Airport that says "sheriff" on it.

>> Robbie Sherwood: Howie wouldn't know what the law says. It was Halloween. We're got to arrest Chip for impersonating James Carvel tonight.

>> Michael: That's a darn good one - maybe we could arrange that.

>> Chip Scutari: That's a backhanded complement.

>> Michael: We would like an officer to report to the set. Control take care of that.

>> Howard Fischer: You know what the other funny part of this is, one of the ballot measures that sheriff Joe has been pushing is prop 411, which is to take the tax that we put on our own sales here in Maricopa County, which is supposed to be for jail construction, let it be used for running the jails. It seems a little "eh," but people probably were willing to 19 do it. How do you go back and say, we're going to reward Joe for this sort of stupidity? He may have done the best anti-prop 411 there was.

>> Michael: I want to touch on a couple of others. Proposition 203, the marijuana proposition.

>> Michael Grant: I'm not going to Howie.

>> Robbie Sherwood: Why are you asking me this?

>> Michael: What do you think? It's passed a couple of times before. Have they crossed the line with the DPS distribution network?

>> Robbie Sherwood: I firmly believe that it comes down to if people take the time to read the ballot language, because I think if you ask somebody, do you want to decriminalize marijuana, yes. Do you think DPS ought to hand it out for free, no. This does sort of both. It really is going to come down to what people feel about that topic, and whether or not they really understand what they are voting on.

>> Howard Fischer: And whether people that smoke marijuana can find their way to the polls.

>> Michael: Alright, we're out of time. Last Friday edition before the general election. We'll see what happens.

>>> Michael : Speaking of seeing, to see a transcript of tonight's show or to share your views or contact us, visit the channel 8 Web site at www.kaet.asu.edu., click on "Horizon" and follow the links. Monday, join us to learn all about the ballot propositions in a one-hour "Horizon" special. Tuesday, "Horizon" will not air at its normal time, but 20 instead, we will be on the air at 9:30 that evening for election coverage, and then Wednesday, please join us for a post election wrap-up show.

>>> Thanks very much for being here on a Friday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great weekend. Good night. .