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October 25, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
The "Journalists' Roundtable"
In-Studio Guests:
Mark Flatten, "East Valley Tribune";
Paul Davenport, "Associated Press";
Bob Robb, "Arizona Republic"

>> Michael: It's Friday, October 25th, 2002, in the headlines this week, the four candidates running for Governor faced off in debates, as new polls show Democrat Janet Napolitano in the lead, a new poll also shows that odds are only one of the three gaming proposals on the ballot has a chance of winning in November. And Governor Hull released a proposal that calls for cuts in spending to deal with the state's budget cries cease.

>>> Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. This is the journalists' roundtable. Joining me to talk about these and other stories are Mark Flatten of the "East Valley Tribune." Paul Davenport with the "Associated Press." And Bob Robb, with the "Arizona Republic." Less than two weeks to go before the election, gubernatorial candidates squared off in a couple of debates. Mark, you were there at the league of women voters debate, in fact, a panel participant. Was there a major bit of new data there that the loosening of environmental restrictions on military training exercise?

>> Mark Flatten: That came out of nowhere. Salmon tried to make that, you know, the big bomb shell of the evening, but I don't know that it really, you know, picked up much ground for him. You know, salmon has kind of been drifting back and forth across this track. He's got a good issue, which he talked about, which I think he honed in on Tuesday in the debate at "Horizon." Which is Napolitano's evasive issue on whether she raises taxes. He's got a good issue there. He'll get on it and then drift off into some bizarre little tangent. This is a little tangent thing. Basically boils down to well, she didn't support the defense secretary. Of state, Don Rumsfeld. I think he meant the defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. On a request that the defense department was pushing in congress to loosen the endangered species act for military training. It's one of those arcane issues that nobody really, you know, wasn't too much in the radar. Napolitano responded the following day by releasing a letter with I believe 33 attorneys general Republican and Democrat who had taken a very similar position. And it just sort of all kind of fell down the drain in a muddled mass.

>> Michael: You know, Bob, when I'm doing debates, and I'm in the worst spot to judge how things are going. One opinion, though, that I had on Tuesday's debate was more from a tonal standpoint. I wondered if it looked like the guys were, you know, beating up the girl. What do you think?

>> Bob Robb: I think it's in part by the polls coming out saying she is the front runner and all of the or the candidates are concentrating their attacks on Napolitano, particularly on the tax issue. 3 I was on the media panel in a debate in Tucson, and it was the same thing. There was a candidate questionnaire section and as on Monday night's debate, all three of the other candidates chose Napolitano for the question, openly ridiculed the notion that she's only going to increase taxes $200 million and only by closing sales tax loopholes. The question is how does that play. Is that something that's considered untoward or have we reached the point -- I don't think anyone would question it. If it were Matt Salmon, who was the front runner, but are we to the point where that's kind of unchivalrous behavior in politics because it's a woman or she's the front runner and obviously she's now subject to more scrutiny than the others? I'm not sure, but it's certainly a factor that's out there.

>> Paul Davenport: One thing to note about that attacks on the perceived front runner, it's relatively uncoordinated. You have Mahoney saying she is not going to raise taxes enough in effect, while not cutting enough, and you have salmon saying she shouldn't be cutting at all. It's not like they are coming from her at one direction, they are coming from different directions.

>> Mark Flatten: But the bottom lines are the same, which are -- which is the Napolitano plan doesn't add up. If you look at the plan --

>> Michael: Does anyone's plan add up?

>> Mark Flatten: Well, actually Barry Hess's adds up because he wants to 4 trash and burn everything like turn it into Atlanta in the 1860s. But if you look at her plan, this isn't unique to her plan. How is she going to balance the budget? She talks about closing tax loopholes. Well, aside from taxes sales of natural gas to power plants, which, you know, much of that power is sold in Arizona, and presumably would be passed on to consumers, we're down to taxes little bottles of soaps and sham puss at hotels. That's insignificant.

>> Michael: It's going to irritate me. I haven't bought shampoo in four, five years.

>> It's the little ones in the hotels.

>> Michael: That's what I mean. That's why I haven't bought it.

>> Bob Robb: and the it goes beyond the $200 million in the loopholes that she says she will close to balance next year's budget, but the question is where does she want to take state government. And given her indictment of the 1990s, the reasonable assumption is that she thinks state government should be considerably bigger, but doesn't identify how she will pay for that how say how much bigger she thinks it should be.

>> Mark Flatten: the biggest component of her plan -- I think it is the biggest, is this commission that's going to identify the $300 in savings and $200 million in tax cuts, which I guess in government, that's the same as money on the table. How do you solve a budget crisis? 5 Well, you appoint a commission so we don't have a budget crisis.

>> Michael: Alfredo Gutierrez finally came out grudgingly and endorsed Janet Napolitano. It was real backhanded endorse men, particularly in the budget plan.

>> Bob Robb: It was. It was different from the position he took after the election, which was he was not going to endorse any candidate for Governor. So it does help put her own base -- I don't think Alfredo really jeopardized her base, but it does kind of put the last kind of check on doing it, on consolidating her base. I think it was advantageous, but not significant.

>> Michael: Paul, Sunday, President Bush back in town. I didn't go back and check the records, but I have got to believe for Arizona three trips by a sitting president in five months has got to be a record.

>> Paul Daenport: Yeah, what we're seeing here is basically a get-out-the-vote type push, to mobilize supporters to turn out for salmon, the head of the ticket, plus for the congressional candidate Renzi in the first congressional district.

>> Michael: Now former president Clinton is going to show up for Jan nat nap down in Tucson next Thursday, but Janet Napolitano is not going to show up?

>> Mark Flatten: She isn't showing up for Bill Clinton. He's showing up for all Democratic candidates. Napolitano's people insist that she's not trying to distance 6 herself from Clinton --

>> Michael: She's just tied up on other business?

>> Mark Flatten: She's just busy with other things. And both bush and Clinton was asked today does that really move numbers. Well, I don't know that the intent of either bush or Clinton is necessarily to move numbers, it's to get the numbers that are already in your column up and out on election day. I don't think President Bush or president Clinton visiting is going to make somebody go, boy, you know, Clinton supports Napolitano, I guess I'll vote for her. But what it does do is remind them that the election is coming up, they need to be aware and get out and vote.

>> Bob Robb: and it does help, I think, salmon combat the Democratic characterization of him as too extreme even for Republicans. I don't think Clinton particularly moves numbers for Napolitano as opposed to energizing the base but, it may help salmon STAVE off Republican vote.

>> Paul Davenport: If there is any Democratic leaning Tucson, as a result of the Clinton visit, that will help them. You were saying before the show that they need a strong get-out-the-vote push on election day because Republicans are ahead on the early ballot requests.

>> Bob Robb: the preliminary reports this week and it doesn't appear to be narrowing, is that Republicans had twice as many early ballot requests as Democrats. Today is the last day to make the request, so, on Monday, we'll get the final figures, but if that's true, that creates a huge turnout challenge for Democrats for election day, and a requirement to get a large number of cross-over Republican votes.

>> Micheal: and Bob, the last time I saw the return rate had not been particularly aggressive on early ballots requested to date. Has that picked up?

>> Bob Robb: I'm not sure, Michael. I would be surprised if it has. I think voters have been burned at the end of a couple of elections.

>> Michael: Right.

>> Bob Robb: and I suspect there's a greater tendency to take advantage of the convenience by voting by mail, but a desire to hear some of the closing arguments before finally making up your mind.

>> Mark Flatten: and another thing, too, I honestly don't know how much this might affect that, but last time I talked to the recorder's office, which was a week ago, they said their priority was to get the ballots out and they weren't putting a high priority on seeing how many were coming back in.

>> Michael: Okay. All right.

>> Bob Robb: and the Republicans will have a huge priority on chasing those early ballot requests to try to turn out that vote as well as to get people to vote on election day.

>> Michael: Paul, one other gubernatorial campaign related development this week, the Clean Elections Commission finally getting around to tying up that 8 detail on the salmon campaign from the primary election. I'm really confused. I get the impression clean elections gave Matt Salmon's campaign a fairly clean bill of health, but I'm not really sure.

>> Paul Davenport: It isn't wrapped up yet. He has 30 days from a meeting this week until -- it takes us well into November to respond to what is now a formal allegation that his campaign reported a lot of money, expenditures late during the primary campaign. But at the same time, the auditor hired by the state that that amount of money is relatively small, much smaller than was reported and looked into earlier.

>> Mark Flatten: Largely by the math of their own accountant looking at roughly $28,000 that's in serious, serious reporting area. And you are talking in the context of a million dollar campaign. You know, a couple of interesting things to read into this, back in august when the commission cleared salmon the first time and started reinvestigating him two days later, mat Shaffer who was the deputy director identified some late reporting and said it was really not particularly significant, and he said the problem is the clean elections law -- or the elections laws are convoluted confusing and I recommend that the commission develop some standards. Here we are this last week, the commission's own accountant, after -- well, back up -- Schafer was fired by Colleen Connor, essentially, for that opinion. 9 Here we are last week, her own accountant comes back and says the laws are convoluted, confusing and we recommend that the commission do something to get some clarification.

>> Michael: You've had a 180 three times on this issue.

>> Mark Flatten: We're spinning in circles.

>> Paul Davenport: the most that can happen is a fine, $10,000 at most.

>> Michael: Let's go up to northern Arizona, congressional district one, poll result indicating Rick Renzi in the lead?

>> Bob Robb: Yes, this is a district which is registered Democrat by 9% registration advantage, but bush narrowly won it. It is one of the races in the entire country that is thought to most affect the control of congress. That's why the president will have been here twice, the vice president has already been here once. Early polls are that -- but it's also interesting that this was a district, rural interest, very much wanted in order to have their own candidate, and you have two guys that haven't lived in the district prior to the election. The Republican Rick Renzi appears to be ahead. The Democrat George Cordova has had questions raised about his business dealings, about where he's been registered, an the Democratic party was about five weeks late in gearing up a campaign there. It's almost as though they weren't sure they were going to get involved. They are now heavily involved in that district. 10

>> Michael: Dropped some fairly serious money.

>> Bob Robb: They have dropped serious money. I expect both parties will continue to target this to the end of the campaign.

>> Michael: Mark, a series of other debates this week, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction, Secretary of State. Learn anything significantly new from any of those?

>> Mark Flatten: Well, these guys don't care much for each other, so there is a lot of heat and probably not a lot of light. You know, I don't know that numbers are moving too much. The ones to watch are the -- the AG's race looks like it's pretty safely going in Goddard's favor, but it's not so much of a blowout that it's a write-off at this point. The Secretary of State's race, I'm sorry, how do you generate excitement when you are running for Secretary of State.

>> Michael: A little dust up over the issue of Brewer's charge on Cummiskey's efficacy or lack thereof as a legislator? I don't know if that resonates.

>> Mark Flatten: It's basically personality barbs. There are not a lot of real issues to be had in there.

>> Bob Robb: the attorney general's race does appear to be tightening. It's gone from a 15%, 16% lead for Goddard down to single digits. This race may affect the other races as well, because conservative Christians have identified Andrew Thomas, the Republican candidate, as their reason to come out to vote, and 11 they actually are kind of energizing a get-out-the-vote campaign, primarily to get Thomas elected. That obviously will have ramifications up and down the ticket, because that is for Republicans, the most volatile part of their core con stiff Wednesday see, and the most difficult to actually get out and participate in a nonpresidential election.

>> Mark Flatten: One of the other things that plays off of that that we saw very much in the primary is these preelection polls. I don't read a lot of faith in them, because there are so many variables. There is the early voting. If a candidate as Napolitano seems to do this week, surges ahead now, well how many ballots have been cast and how might that impact it. And turnout. Who turns out, we saw that on primary day, the polls showed salmon and Betsy Bayless very close, but basically salmon's people turned out and bet See's didn't.

>> Michael: And Bob, the other feeling -- including ours, they are only snapshots in time and time obviously keeps marching on, sometimes crashing and burning, whatever the case may be. The trackers, the campaigns themselves do are much more reliable in terms of at least moving that number alone and showing trends and those kinds of things?

>> Bob Robb: In the publicly available polls also have difficulty drilling down to the people who will actually turn out to vote, which is the key variable as mark mentioned. You have only two-thirds of Arizonans who are registered to vote and only 40% of those who are registered to vote are likely to vote in this election. So you're down to about 25 to 30% of adult Arizonans that are going to decide to vote and capturing that group and surveying them, is not an easy task.

>> Michael: Paul, $37 million on the gaming propositions, and at least based on the poll results we saw this week, two of them unlikely to pass, one of them, problem session 202, maybe. Do you think there is a lot of wrist slashing after $37 million?

>> Paul Davenport: Well, there are people who might be disliking the situation the most will be the new legislators who might have to confront that issue again next year one way or another. 202 was the one that was close to 50%. If they got any support on the undecided, that's over the top. The other is sort of like the Governor's race. The backers for the other two gambling propositions have been targeting 202 almost exclusively with their ads these days, attacking it, rather than promoting their own.

>> Michael: I don't think I've actually seen a vote for 200 and 201 spot in past two weeks.

>> Mark Flatten: I've heard a couple 201 spots that are sort of a mix, like 30-second spot with 25 saying how bad 202 is and 5 seconds saying if you want more information, look at our Web site. An interesting development out of this, if all three go down, would be that this falls back in the Governor's lap, presumably the new Governor, potentially Governor Hull. And they would be approaching this with a very different dynamic than they had before. Because when they were negotiating gaming compacts before the tribes had a big card in their hand. They could always say if we don't get what we want, we're going to the ballot. That situation will be reversed, because if all three of these go down, the Governor will be able to say, look, the public already voted on these three propositions that you guys don't have a blank check. And that might strengthen the negotiating position.

>> Paul Davenport: We've also had the court ruling saying the Governor at this point, until some other court does something different, the Governor has say over it for now.

>> Michael: Yeah. Bob, is this the burden of the no vote cubed?

>> Bob Robb: Yes. I mean, in general, if there is activity on both sides of a ballot proposition, the no side prevails about two-thirds of the time. And usually ballot propositions reach their high watermark the day they are filed. After that it's a race to see whether they are going to lose enough votes to actually lose by election day. So, being at only 50% at this point is very nerve racking for any consultant trying to get one 14 of these things past, irrespective of what the no margin is. And you take that general burden of the no vote and compound it with three different propositions dealing with the same thing, and increasing hunger on the part of the electorate to know the details, a frustration about not being able to get the details or comprehend the details, and it creates a pretty poison us atmosphere is your job is to deliver a yes vote on any of these propositions.

>> Michael: Final legislative note, Scottsdale and Tempe chambers of commerce endorsing Laura Knaperek over Harry Mitchell?

>> Paul Davenport: Yes, it's one of the most competitive in the state. You've got two entrenched incumbents, albeit Knaperek trying to get the Mitchell seat at the senate. The chambers people have been saying that Mitchell's voting on business issues was not enough to their liking. Mitchell hasn't been that much of a dynamo in the legislature. I think that's fair to say and some people have criticized him for that. And so he's got his work cut out for him.

>> Michael: This week, Governor Hull unveiled her plan to deal with the state's budget crisis. Paul, she's been working with the agencies for quite some time. Give us the major outlines of the budget plan.

>> Paul Davenport: the major outlines are that it's what we journalist like to call "the usual suspects." A lot of proposals we've heard before and a lot of what has been bandied about came out in the plan this week. More than $100 million in cuts from agencies, pretty much excluding classroom education and Department of Corrections, but everybody else by and large got hit with a few exceptions here and there. There is also some revenue bonding. There is also taking some money from a lawsuit settlement that won't be needed this fiscal year, so they want to use it to balance the budget. It adds up to $409 million out of a projected shortfall of about up to $500. So that's four-fifths of the way there. Legislators I talked to were mixed. There was some support among key legislators saying yeah, we ought to have the post election session for the lame ducks that the Governor wants. She put a caveat on it. She doesn't want to call it unless leaders tell her there is a con says sus to move ahead with her plan or something like it.

>> Michael: How much mischief possible in that kind of lame duck session, mark, do you think?

>> Mark Flatten: Well, you can mix mischief and anger. They will not be in the best of moods. But win or lose, they know that there is a serious, serious problem here, and every day that goes by without dealing with it compounds the problem significantly. 16 And you know, they know that whether they are coming back or whether somebody else is coming back for them, that's really not going to be fair to leave the budget problem we've got now extrapolate that by a month or to, and try to leave that to the new legislature.

>> Paul Davenport: These people all took oaths of office and most of them take it seriously. So you hear talk about them not showing up. Well, they'll show up and they may be ranker Russ, but they'll do something.

>> Mark Flatten: If they get together, it will work to their advantage because they don't want to be there long

>>> They may be of the mood to come in and say fine, Jane, whatever you want.

>> Michael: Incidentally, the point on waiting only makes it worse also being made by business leaders through Marty shoals in relation to the special session?

>> Bob Robb: and there was a letter for -- Marty Schultz is a lobbyist for APS. Delaying it makes it worse, this is a serious problem, lets get about doing the business.

>> Michael: Another $40 million in university cuts on top of what has already occurred. How will that be received? A. Well, it was received very gingerly by the university presidents in the board of regents. But in reality, the universities have faired better than other state agencies. They did receive some increases while other state agencies were receiving an 8% to 10% reduction the first time around. They had a reduction from their increase, rather than a reduction from their previous base, and in this round, the average was the most agencies got a 10% hit. The universities got a 5% hit. The board of regents only got a 3% hit, although that's a very, very small agency. So, I mean, the universities are engaged in an effort to try to make themselves less dependent upon state appropriations through their changing directions initiatives and to be more entrepreneurial.

>> Michael: Endowments.

>> Bob Robb: This will stimulate that effort even more, I believe, but exactly how they are going to react and whether they will try to line up their business community and community support and their legislative support to try to buck it is unclear.

>> Mark Flatten: One of the things that all of the candidates for Governor are talking about is giving the universities Morley way. There is a Constitutional prohibition for them doing partnership agreements with the private sector for what amounts to using their technology commercially. And all of the candidates are talking about that as an option for making the universities less dependent an bringing new revenue to the universities.

>> Michael: Incidentally on the K-12 level on the proposal on the revenue bonding, Paul, the legislature had approved lease-purchase -- I'm not sure how it might work, but is this on top of the lease-purchase program?

>> Paul Davenport: I think it's for a different part of the students first program. The lease-purchase is for building new schools. As I understand this new proposal, correct me if I'm wrong, it's for so-called deficiency correction to pay for fixing up some of the substandard schools.

>> Bob Robb: That's correct. They were able to bond up to $800 million to do more than a billion dollar task from proposition 301 sales tax money. What the Governor is proposing is let's do another $100 million and bond against state trust land income that's dedicated to education. So it's a way to take some of the remainder of the deficiency funding, catching up existing schools to new standards, that currently remains an obligation of the general fund.

>> Michael: Okay, panelists. Thanks a lot. Ten days to go. We'll make it.

>>> to see a transcript of tonight's show, or to show your views or contact us, please visit the Channel 8 Web site at www.kaet.asu.edu., click on "Horizon" on the left side of the screen, and follow the links. Join us Monday as we help you unravel the mystery of Indian gaming initiatives. We'll hear from proponents of all three measures. On Tuesday, we'll talk about the hot legislative races, plus we'll show you how the blind and visually impaired get their election information.

>>> Wednesday, meet ASU's new president Dr. Michael Crow. In addition, we'll show you how voters make up their minds. And Thursday, join us for the video version of the proposition publicity pamphlet as we tell you more about the 14 statewide ballot propositions.

>>> Thanks for joining us. I'm Michael grant. Have a great weekend. Good night.