Other transcripts

Transcripts

October 29, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
Arizona's key legislative races; the Internet's impact on political campaigns and candidates; how blind and visually impaired get election information
In-Studio Guests:
Political analysts Rory Hays and Bob Grossfeld;
Dr. George Watson, professor of political science at ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

>> Michael: Tonight on "Horizon," we talk about a few of Arizona's more interesting legislative races in the approaching general election. And we take a look at how the Internet is impacting campaigns and candidates. Plus, we'll show you how the blind and visually impaired get their election information.

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

>>> Primary races have boiled down to the nearing general election. Investigators will make their decisions next Tuesday. Redistricting impacts some of the races but few are offering hot competition. Joining me now, our political analyst Rory Hays and Bob Grossfeld, good to see you both again.

>>> Let's recap the landscape. What's the current party slit?

>> Rory Hays: 36-24 in the House, with the Republicans in the majority. It's been a very colorful 15-15 split.

>> Michael: It's run more smoothly. It may not have run like some people would have wanted it, but there hasn't been the total meltdown.

>> Rory Hays: The last year with the budget problems, though, we started getting close to meltdown, that may be true regardless of who is running the place.

>> Michael: I understand the two of you may differ a little bit when all of this general election dust settles, what's it going to look like?

>> Rory Hays: My read is probably in the House the Republicans have a lock on 36 to 37. I don't think they are going to 2 lose too many significantly. They are clearly going to be in the majority. I don't think anybody disagrees about that. Senate could be as high as -- in my view, 17 or -- about 17 for the Republicans, I think Bob thinks it could be closer to 15.

>> Michael: All right, Bob, give me your shot.

>> Bob Grossfeld: And she reads minds, too.

>> Rory Hays: Yes.

>> Bob Grossfeld: I think there is a good chance that the senate remains in that peaceful 15-15 split and that the Democrats pick up one seat in the house over what it is now. So it would be 35-25.

>> Michael: Now, when voters approved the redistricting commission, there was a whole lot of talk about competitive legislative districts. We didn't get a whole lot of those. Why not?

>> Bob Grossfeld: Well, I think the answer can be summarized in ways that could lose the license of this fine establishment, but the bottom line is that the redistricting commission, I believe, and I think many people believe, misread the law and misapplied what it was that the voters had approved and took the competitive aspects of it and made that a far secondary consideration. Had that been considered the way it was intended to make districts competitive, as well as complied with voting rights and all of the other requirements, things would be much, much different today. But they are not.

>> Michael: I think if the Redistricting Commission was sitting here, collectively, it would be hard to get them all in this one chair, but they would say, competitive districts were last. We needed to make sure that we got the 7 or 8 or 9 criteria satisfied beforehand, and one of the prime drivers being the Voting Rights Act, we couldn't do both.

>> Rory Hays: At least in their perception, and to be very honest, strategically, this is hard to do. This election law area, especially the Voting Rights Act is constantly subject to court review and we know what it looks like when we see it. It's clear that that was one of the things that they were thinking about, because there's only about six districts that have a difference of 10% or less between Republican and Democrat. It's interesting that because I think of their concern with diminution of minority representation under the Voting Rights Act, those districts in which the difference is greatest is 40% on the Navajo reservation, it's 40% Democrat. In south Phoenix, it's 46% Democrat, and in west central Tucson, it's 30% Democrat. So, I think there is an argument to be made that perhaps with a little more caution, they could have, in fact, met both requirements and made the races more competitive but they didn't.

>> Michael: Let's go to some of the specific races. Let's start with legislative District 17, House. Meg Burton Cahill got elected 4 there last time. She was a long shot, facing some stiff competition this time around.

>> Bob Grossfeled: Yeah, principally the heart of the district is Tempe. And right now, she's looking very, very good, and I would suspect at the end of the day -- pardon me, it's going to be one of those races where it's always going to be tight, one of those districts where it's always going to be tight. She'll pull it out. The only question right now is can she bring along her running mate in this one, Darlene Panny. Again, that's looking pretty good as well on the house side.

>> Michael: House side, Legislative District 17, do you disagree with that assessment?

>> Rory Hays: No, it's always been tough in Tempe. That's one of the lowest differences. It's only 5% there is a slight Republican edge, 39%, but 34% Ds and 27%, a lot of Independents. That could be the deciding factor.

>> Michael: And a different kind of "R" I think resides in Tempe. Tempe has a very -- they voted for Rio Salado, obviously the smoking ban.

>> Michael Grant: The premier race of any of them is District 17 Senate and there you've got Harry Mitchell the long-time Mayor of Tempe and Laura Knaperek who has been successful in some of her prior legislative runs, but she lost a lot of the real strong parts of her district, did she not?

>> Rory Hays: Especially some of the area where she had served on school boards and had a lot of her ties. 5 This is interesting because Harry has had a lot of success with a variety of groups in Tempe. He's well known, well liked, only guy running I think for the legislature that has a statue, but had a little less success with the business community this time in terms of both the Tempe chamber and the Scottsdale chamber. And then I think that's going to help Laura. On the other hand she's in the difficult role of appropriations chairman. There are people that you make unhappy, including a lot of mobile home residents because she went into one of the mobile home relocation funds. So some of those people can get upset about that kind of thing. There is a lot of pluses and minuses on both sides. I'm probably still thinking that Mitchell has an edge here.

>> Michael: I was surprised by the Tempe chamber endorsement of Laura Knaperek. Not particularly surprised by the Scottsdale endorsement, but Harry's roots in Tempe go real deep.

>> Bob Grossfeld: I mean the bottom line is this district, they are wild about Harry. They are going to stay with Harry and right now, this is the first opportunity to get to it, what is happening is this outside group that is neither registered nor reporting, it's called AAIB, Arizona at its best, which did great damage to moderate Republican women in the Republican primary is now going after people like Harry Mitchell and Democrats, and I think that's starting to create a backlash among those same moderate Republicans who were --

>> Michael: What what are their techniques?

>> Bob Grossfeld: Direct mail, phone calls, things of that nature.

>> Michael: Let's travel out to District 5. Jake Flake is the name known by many. In general how is that race?

>> Rory Hays: This one is a really interesting one. This has always been an interesting district. It's actually more Dem than Republican, and yet it has had largely some Republican representatives in the last few years. Jake is best known because he is very likely to be the speaker if he's successful in this effort. There's also some pretty strong Democrats in this one, though. Bill Jeffers who is well known and a rancher up there. Claudia Mastis who is a former Holbrook Mayor. There was an interesting primary there, Debra Brimhall, the incumbent lost to Bill Kopenicky. I would be hard pressed to figure out who the number two is going to be. I would think Mr. Flake is going to be successful, but I'm not sure I could call the number two shot.

>> Michael: Let's go to the west side of the Phoenix, District 10 Senate. You think Jim Weiers could be in trouble in his bid for a Senate seat?

>> Bob Grossfeld: Yeah, it's one of those districts where it's not a vast majority Republican district with overwhelming numbers and this, that and the other, which means given any kind of equity in the campaigns, which Clean Elections now provides, there is an opportunity to campaign heavily against an incumbent, use the record against them, and to point out things like involvement with alt fuels or whatever the case would be. And I think that is starting to get some traction for Kennedy in this case. And again the same AAIB player is out there throwing out the hit pieces and that's causing that same kind of backlash effect.

>> Michael: Jim Weiers is the current speaker. Obviously will not be next year. Normally this position, those sorts of leadership positions will certainly count for something in the race.

>> Rory Hays: Well, and he's certainly well known. He has served that area for a while. But once again, I think this is one where it is competitive in terms of the registration.

>> Michael: What about district 12, Glendale?

>> Rory Hays: Yeah, Glendale, Avondale and Litchfield Park. This is another one, very close numbers in terms of registration. Robert Glendu who is a House incumbent is running against Peter Mahoney, a city council person from Litchfield. That is being reported publicly as being close. I think some Republican officials concede that may be a dead-on race right now.

>> Michael: Bob, what do you think?

>> Bob Grossfeld: I would agree with that and say if I had to bet right now, the trending is going against the Republican incumbent. You know, you have all of the stuff that's gone on over the last couple of years, and effectively nobody to blame, using your vote to blame somebody. You get these close districts or in Arizona speak, something that isn't a 20-point difference, that's an opportunity to express that, couple that with some of the hit piece stuff that's going out, that's a situation that spells trouble for an incumbent like that.

>> Michael: Almost out of time, but District 8, Fountain Hills, how is that one sizing up? >> Rory Hays: This is interesting because it doesn't fit the typical marginal race that we know is going to be close, kind of situation because there is a significance. The Republican registration is twice as high as the Democrat registration. North Scottsdale, there has been some question, though as to whether or not Jenny Chen who has been running there before and has been active in the school board might have a spot at one of the spots this time in the house.

>> Michael: Some vulnerability you think, Bob? That's a big spread.

>> Bob Grossfeld: I think this may be a situation where the district leans to right, but they are not nearly as far right as at least one of the Republican candidates. That gives her an opening. 9

>> Michael: Okay, Bob Grossfeld, thanks for joining us. Rory Hays, good to see you again.

>> Years ago the only way candidates could get their message out was to go directly to people on the campaign trail. Now as voters struggle to make their decisions, the Internet is the new device for communication. Political campaigns have seized upon the worldwide web and the use of home pages, message boards, E-mail. What impact is the Internet having on campaigns today? We'll talk about that in a moment. First Merry Lucero takes a look at how candidates are using the web to inform, enlighten and confuse voters and to win votes.

>> Janet Napolitano: I would encourage the viewers to go to my Web site which is gojanet.org and pull up my budget plan and my economic development plan.

>> Reporter: If you are not living in a cave you are being bombarded with Internet addresses for election information on issues, campaigns and candidates. For many voters, the Internet is a valuable tool for deciphering confusing election rhetoric, but some candidates and pundits are using the web to weave negative campaigns, like this one from Secretary of State candidate Jan Brewer.

>> Anybody that is interested can go to hisrecord.org and check out the facts.

>> This site attacks Brewer's opponent Chris Cummisky's voting and attendance records. Cummisky uses his own website to air a news clip that picks appart that attack. Another web site e-mailed across the Valley takes a deep dig at gubernatorial candidate Matt Salmon.

>> Reporter: But are some election related web sites going overboard to gain your attention? We took a look at a few, like this one, which will allow you to E-mail 16 different newspapers with one click or this one which urges no votes on four different proper significants and allows you to join a prayer team. It goes on to say native Americans are corrupted and exploited by gambling interests in exchange for a relatively small amount of cash, but "The Arizona Rrepublic" said that Indian gaming brings in an estimated $1 billion a year to tribes. This Prop 201 site enables you to adopt a greyhound. And many translate to Spanish. And in case you missed them on TV, several allow you to download and play radio and television campaign ads.

>>Joe Arizona: We don't get the mail barefoot in the summer. We don't drive through a wash when it's flooded. We don't buy black cars with leather seats. So shouldn't we vote for the proposition that helps everybody?

>> Reporter: Many give you a good look at the candidates. Some have family albums, wedding and vacation photos and pictures of them as a child. But will those help you make up your mind on election day? 11 Candidates seem to think so. Just ask them.

>> Michael: Joining me now to talk about the Internet's impact on political campaigns, Dr. George Watson. You remember him. He is a professor of political science at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication here at ASU and a guy we call on regularly. George, good to see you again.

>> George Watson: Thank you very much, Michael. Good to be here.

>> Michael: This is pretty new. Do we have much emperical data on how effective Internet use is?

>> George Watson: We don't yet. A lot of articles are talking more about the use of it, or the lack of use of it. But they are not taling yet on how much impact that it's had on elections. You have to understand there is a 2 to 4 year period, though, between research being done and articles being written, et cetera, et cetera, and also, the impact of the web is changing with every election. So, we don't really know yet what impact it's having. We can only guess that it is increasing, and that hopefully some day from an Internet perspective it will in fact be a major resource. It has that potential.

>> Michael: Well, and if you subscribe to the theory that these people know what they are doing, and I want to underline "if" here, certainly there has been an explosion of it. I mean, you can find me at WWW.-- seems like it appears -- it appears on campaign signs, television appearances, that kind of thing.

>> George Watson: There has been an explosion because you have to have a Web site. But unfortunately for most candidates it stops there. They put money into creating web sites, but often not enough to make it a really good Web site and you see that decline as you go down the level of the office. So at the statewide level for Governor, pretty good web sites. Start going down the state lists, poorer web sites as you go down, and when you go to state legislative districts, not very good web sites as all, generally speaking.

>> Michael: Is it used as a primary communication source or a information source supplemental to other things you are doing, mailings, TV, radio, whatever your weapon of choice is?

>> George Watson: It's not a primary source for anybody else. What it is becoming is a source for organizing the campaign more. So more and more candidates are beginning to use that to organize the get-out-the-vote effort, to organize their own workers and to work with them and so it's used more to organize the campaign, a little bit less to reach the undecided voters. That's the next step for people.

>> Michael: Someone had made a comment to me -- actually it went back to last election cycle, that they found it to be a particularly good organizational and informational tool for their own volunteers, so that, for example, if 13 something happened on a Tuesday afternoon, the campaign could throw up "here is our response to that," as opposed to a phone tree or other mechanisms to get that word out to local people. Those people could have the benefit of that common message almost instantaneous.

>> George Watson: It's quick to do that. You can organize the main points you want to organize and hit back quickly when your campaign itself has been hit. On the other hand, you can strike quickly. So we may see some strikes as the campaign election date nears.

>> Michael: Does seem to me that that is a significant nuance and fairly recent nuance in terms of being an active campaign device. You have seen more and more negative use of the Internet.

>>George Watson: As we've already seen, there is more opportunity to put up videos of actual ads. So streaming video and audio make the visual capability much greater. You're going to see some of that in the ads. Otherwise, we're kind of missing the point with the Internet, though, because the point is that the Internet offers the opportunity to have much more detail. It's a place that ought to be rich with issue positions and documenting where you stand and where the candidate stands and drawing contrasts between candidates and we're not seeing that at web sites very much yet.

>> Michael: How effective are the campaigns simply in getting out the word that "I've got the Web site"? 14 I'm sure it's convenient but you have to know it's WWW.what.

>> George Watson: That's a weak spot, too. With every opportunity, you need to convey to people that it's out there. There are some organizations like AZvoters.org that are trying to give you the sites of all of the candidates, but even that's failed. We were talking about district 17 earlier. When I went to that Web site, they said that Harry Mitchell didn't have a Web site. But he does have a Web site. So clearly the organization hasn't noted that and hasn't gotten the word out to that in fact he does have a Web site.

>> Michael: Any Internet truth police lurking out there? Should we believe everything we read, see or hear on the Internet?

>> George Watson: Given that there are no Internet police, you have to be very wary of what you see on the Internet. People are learning this in life just generally as well as in campaigns. However, the opportunity to do quick comparisons is kind of a policing device in and of itself. So if one -- if candidate (A) wants to do something that is not quite truthful, you can know that candidate (B) is going to be there with a corrective.

>> Michael: There has been a lot of discussion generally, and I think the word is -- is it "spamming" on the Internet?

>> George Watson: There is spam on the Internet, yes.

>> Michael: What about voter irritation? 15 Because you do have -- you have broadcasting and those kinds of things.

>> George Watson: Spamming, I assume everybody is getting as irritated as I am with it. One does have to be careful to use the internet in ethical ways. I think spamming is not an ethical way. Another technique that comes close is what may be called "viral marketing." In viral marketing, you can begin by sending out an E-mail site that you want people to look out and then they send it out word of mouth. That travels very, very fast. There are things that can be put up in terms of campaigns, especially negative spots that nonetheless can get a lot of attention, specially if they are done well and done with humor.

>> Michael: All right. George Watson, thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate the insight.

>>> Michael: People with normal vision might take for granted the wealth of election information available to them on the Internet and elsewhere, but how do visually impaired and blind voters find information about the candidates and ballot propositions? One way is by using a new service offered by Sun Sounds of Arizona.

>> Hello and welcome to Sundial a news and information service provided by Sun Sounds of Arizona. If you are calling to use the new voter information section of Sundial, please press 9 now.

>> Mike Sauceda: Voters who can't read because of a physical or visual disability can get election information just by using their telephone.

>> Any person who is visually impaired or for some other reason has difficulty reading conventional print is eligible to use the system. During the election period, we have a special arrangement with the Citizens Clean Election Commission. They are paying for a toll free statewide line that virtually anybody can use.

>> Mike Sauceda: The Sundial system used specialized software that reads text based web pages aloud. You don't need an expensive computer or adapt it to access the information. All you need is a touchtone telephone.

>> All of the pages are indexed. So a person can kind of scan down and listen to the telephone. It'll talk to you and say "Ballot 102," and "Ballot initiative 103" and you hit a key on your telephone keypad and it jumps to that initiative and reads it to you. It's the same information that all registered voters got in the mail.

>> People have called us and said they love Sundial. They like to -- they like the ability to move around and freely get their information on their own schedule. People use it using their cell phones, on buses, from their offices, from home. That's the beauty of it. It's extremely flexible.

>> Mike Sauceda: Before Sundial started its service, people had a choice of getting the voter information by asking someone to read it to them or by listening to 30 hours of cassette tape without an index.

>> It's wonderful in my opinion because it's given me the opportunity to read the information on my own, and I can go back and look at it again and reread it, and if I have any -- without bothering anyone else, and I can become very independent myself. It's outstanding.

>> Within hours, instead of within a week.

>> Mike Sauceda: The Sundial Voter Information Project is provided by Sun Sounds of Arizona. Sun Sounds is an information access service for people who can't read conventional print but can listen to news and information that is normally distributed in a printed format.

>> Just remember as a blind person or visually impaired person, you are a still a person and you need all of that information and any way you can get it is an effective way. And get out there and vote.

>> Michael: If you or someone you know would like to use this service, you can do so by dialing 1-866-878-3271.

>> If you would like more information on "Horizon" topics, please visit the Channel 8 Web site. That address is www.kaet.asu.edu. you can click on "Horizon." You'll find our schedule of election coverage, transcripts of all of the debates we have done, other "Horizon" shows, plus you can watch video of KAET debates on line. Join us tomorrow. Arizona State University has a new leader. Hear from Dr. Michael Crow on his vision for the university at a time of budget cutbacks facing all universities.

>>> Find out how voters decide. That's Wednesday at 7:00 here on "Horizon."

>>> Thank you very much for joining us on this Tuesday evening.

>>> I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one, good night.