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September 3, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· The Journalists Roundtable
In-Studio Guests:
· Bart Graves, KFYI radio;
· Le Templar, "East Valley Tribune;"
· Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

>> Michael Grant:
It's Friday September 3rd, 2004. In the headlines this week, senator John McCain delivering a prime time speech praising President Bush at the Republican national convention. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Armstrong ruling the Protect Arizona Now initiative can be included on November's ballot. And there's a new development involving this year's standoff at the Lewis prison. The State Bar of Arizona has announced it is investigating special prosecutor Mel McDonald in connection with leaks from the grand jury. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. This is the Journalists Roundtable. Joining me to talk about these and other stories are Bart Graves of KFYI radio, Le Templar of the "East Valley Tribune" and Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services. Monday night senator John McCain received national attention as he delivered a prime time address on the opening night of the Republican convention. Bart, welcome back from the big apple.

>> Bart Graves: Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
You survived it.

>> Bart Graves:
Yes, I did, no terrorism, lot of demonstrators but we didn't see a whole lot of them. They were kept far back. The New York City police were clearly in control.

>> Michael Grant:
And a couple of them actually made the convention floor, if I recall correctly.

>> Bart Graves:
A couple of -- one during the president's acceptance speech. Dick Cheney, they came very close to pummelling Dick Cheney, I don't know what he intended to do, and a day session when young Republicans were on the floor they managed to get in there and try to get naked and throw their signs up. They were definitely a present force.

>> Michael Grant:
Naked protesters seem to be indigenous to New York City but we're pretty far off the subject.

>> Bart Graves:
Yes, we are.

>> Michael Grant:
That we intended to discuss, which is what did you think about John McCain's speech?

>> Bart Graves:
This is a moderate GOP convention to bring the moderates home and John McCain set that tone Monday night. He pretty much was the cover for President Bush's controversial -- now controversial decision to go to war in Iraq and with his credibility amongst independents and undecideds and the moderate Republicans, John McCain really hit it home for the president in terms of his leadership abilities in wartime.

>> Michael Grant:
Le, I thought McCain probably brought two very positive things to the convention, one was the tone of the speech, I think he was trying to tell people on both sides, why don't we kind of back off this thing a little with it, then he didn't tell anybody to shove it, so I think he reinforced the message. The second thing I thought he gave great coverage to the president on the war.

>> Le Templar:
He gave what may be the most powerful explanation this year on why it was still a good idea to go to Iraq even though we now know that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction in his possession. Everything I have read plus my own watching the speech would have seemed to agree on that. In fact, it's more articulate than the president -- the case the president has been able to make so far, and perhaps President Bush will steal a little of that speech as we go into the final leg of the campaign here.

>> Howard Fischer:
One of the important things and you touched on it a little bit is the issue of the tone. I mean, John McCain not only talking at the convention but even later talking on David letterman said, look, I know John Kerry, John Kerry is a nice guy, he wouldn't make a bad president, however, this president has been proven and that's why I back him, and doing it in a way, to, as you say, bring home the moderates, to tell people that what you've seen throughout is not the true party. Of course, all that was blown up when Dick Cheney got up there and essentially just mocked Kerry, the whole flip-flop thing and we got to see the dark underbelly of what may really be the Republican party.

>> Michael Grant:
Of course, that's the official role of the vice-president, in fact I think he has to sign a paper of that effect --

>> Bart Graves:
You are going to be the attack dog for the conventions and sign here. And that's pretty much what Dick Cheney with the assist of Zell Miller --

>> Michael Grant:
Angry Zell Miller.

>> Bart Graves:
We're all reminded in New York and back home that he gave the keynote address on behalf of bill Clinton in 1992 savaging the president's father George H.W. bush. Zell Miller clearly doesn't like John Kerry or the Democrats but did like bill Clinton very much.

>> Howard Fischer:
The main thing that Zell Miller did that was most effective had to do with the list of weapons systems. You can talk about any weapons system, I'm sure John McCain opposed some of these, but when you tick them off one after another and say this man opposed them, if in fact the heart of this election is going to be the issue of do you feel secure, and the thing the president polled best on is the issue of terrorism and security, that become the strong suit.

>> Michael Grant:
Getting back to Senator McCain, he really didn't care, however, to spend much time with the Arizona delegation, I understand.

>> Bart Graves:
Anything having to do with the John McCain in New York City this past week was the hot ticket in town. If you were anywhere near him, you were on top. Everybody wanted to be close to John McCain. A delegate told me, the Arizona delegates were finally invited to a huge party at CIPRIANO's, a classy New York restaurant, and a delegate told me there are so many people in tuxedos and the wealthy of eastern Republican politics and they saw Arizona delegate badges. Isn't that quaint? That's from that little state that John McCain is from. It's like, we lost him for that whole week. He finally showed up to the Arizona delegation on the last day of the delegation for a breakfast meeting Thursday morning and kept looking at his watch. Anybody questions? Anybody have some questions?

>> Michael Grant:
It's clear he's playing on a larger more national stage. Some early indication that President Bush unlike John Kerry can get a bump out of the convention.

>> Bart Graves:
There is early indications he did get a bump, but he's getting pretty much hammered by other news, the hurricane, Russia and president Clinton's health problems.

>> Michael Grant:
Clinton's cardiac episode. He's in tomorrow for a quadruple bypass?

>> Le Templar:
Tuesday, actually. It's not an emergent situation so they scheduled it for Tuesday.

>> Michael Grant:
Meanwhile, back in the quaint state the senator hails from, well, as of about 22 years ago, anyway, who endorsed the president this this week, Le?

>> Le Templar:
Oh, the Arizona police association, the largest association of police unions in the state, took an unusual step. It's only -- the union is only about 10 years old, combining several local departments, border patrol, sheriff's deputies, highway patrol types. Took their first step of endorsing a presidential candidate and their attitude is President Bush has been out there backing police on key issues. It was clear that they felt it was important that the president before he rolled out his overtime rules changed it so all police were still eligible for overtime. Apparently a lot of departments would have been ineligible -- or wouldn't have been required to offer overtime to officers forced to work past 40 hours, and they really like the fact he changed his mind on that.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, congressman Ed Pastor and Raul Grijalva criticizing John Kerry on Iraq?

>> Howard Fischer:
It wasn't their intent when they called the press conference. They were there to provide the sort of local look at the Democraticks perspective of what was going on in New York, but what happened is, as you know, when John Kerry was up at the Grand Canyon the question was raised, if you knew then, meaning October 2002, when the war resolution came up, what you know now about Iraq, no weapons of mass destruction, the nearly a thousand deaths, would you have voted any differently. Of course Kerry in one of the most bone headed moves said, oh, of course, I still would have voted the same way. Well, we asked the same question of pastor and of Grijalva. Grijalva wasn't there but said he would have voted against it. Pastor not only was in Congress but in fact did vote against it. He said, look, this was a blank check based on no hard evidence, giving the president the ability to do pretty much anything he wanted in Iraq, and he said, it was wrong to do that. He said, wait a second, excuse me, the man you're out here holding a press conference for said it was the right thing to do. What Ed Pastor said was, look, he doesn't tell me how to vote, I don't tell him how to vote.

>> Michael Grant:
But sort of an implied criticism of Senator Kerry's reading skills, I guess.

>> Howard Fischer:
It may be his political skills in terms of Kerry was doing one of these things back in 2002, knew he was going to run for president, didn't want to be seen as soft on tear terrorism.

>> Michael Grant:
Maricopa County Superior Court judge Mark Armstrong issuing another ruling on protect Arizona now. He decided it can appear on November's ballot. Le, he rejected claims that the ballot description had not been specific enough. Why?

>> Le Templar:
He said it wasn't perfect, but it was clear enough that voters weren't confused by what they were signing. I think a powerful point was for -- for the judge was the people who sued, the service employees international union, presented no evidence of anybody who signed a petition saying, well, I -- if I had known these other things were in it, I wouldn't have signed it. Some people, particularly Kathi McKey, head of protect Arizona now, keeps arguing there aren't any errors in the description, but the key issue was whether it was clear about when you're going to have to provide proof of who you are when you go to vote and whether people knew that government officials could be charged with a crime if they don't report suspected illegal immigrants when they apply for public benefits.

>> Michael Grant:
In many respects the more interesting development this week, though, was the re reaction of opponents to protect Arizona now. Normally you go immediately to the Supreme Court, you don't pass go, you don't collect $500 but they said, no, we're not going to appeal. We'll battle it at the --

>> Le Templar:
They were a little vague about why they made this decision after a course of studying it all day to back away from going to the Supreme Court and just focus on trying to win the campaign for November. I think two issues there. One is, they looked at the judge's ruling and thought they had a pretty weak case, that even though it's -- it saved money, they're going to distract themselves. And the other issue is they have not unveiled this new stronger, broader coalition they're putting together that's brought in the Arizona chamber of commerce and lots of other people with deep pockets. We're only -- only a little less than two months away from November 2nd. Early voting starts at the end of this month. They need to get rolling on this if they're going to fight the momentum of proposition 200.

>> Howard Fischer:
I think the issue of distraction is key, because if you're out there asking businesses to put in 50,000, 100,000, $200,000, and they say, wait a second, I thought you were going to be in court and knock this off the ballot, it really does distract from the fund raising and they need the money there early because early voting begins September 30th and if you don't have a campaign ready, if you don't have the commercials in the can, if you don't have a strategy mapped out, you're dead in the water. And they have an uphill fight. Even the most recent survey that KAET did showed that this thing would pass by a margin of 3-1.

>> Bart Graves:
Back in the beginning we were hearing all about this, they were collecting -- P.A.N. was what it was, the coalition, prominent Hispanic lawmakers, Alfredo Gutierrez and others, said we will start a major publicity campaign aimed at defeating this. Nothing happened. Now they decided to go the court route. Now they're running out of time.

>> Howard Fischer:
They're getting desperate and you can tell by some of their comments, they're talking about all the horrible things that will happen if this passes, that if the DPS offers roadside assistance -- the one that Steve Roman who is another publicist trotted out this week, let's say you're in an accident, you're laying by the side of the road and the paramedics come along. Now, they have to have proof of your legal residency before they can offer aid. I said, wait a second, Steve, this is emergency care. He said, wait, a second, that's exception is only for hospitals. Whether you believe this thing was poorly crafted or not, the definition of public benefit is in title 46. That is the welfare code. If you can find anything about paramedics in the welfare code, about driver's licenses in the welfare code, about library cards in the welfare code, hunting licenses, then maybe you've got a case.

>> Michael Grant:
Le, let's turn our attention to Tuesday, which is always the answer on this show, I might quickly add. Got a primary coming up. Let's take a look at some of the races. The Jeff flake-Stan Barnes race in the East Valley is probably the most interesting.

>> Le Templar:
It is. Where that campaign stands is, of course, Stan Barnes launched early because he raised some fund and he wanted to get out there before Jeff flake got rolling and try to define the issues of the campaign. He basically has exhausted his funds the last month or so whereas Jeff flake an incumbent continues to draw in money from the club for growth crowd. So he's on the air now talking about his record of standing up for taxpayers and not caving to special interests, which is what he says people from district 6 elected him to do when he was sent to office four years ago. And Stan Barnes trying to counter that through the debates and interviews with the media and e-mails to grass roots but we'll see if -- a lot of pundits didn't give him a real chance of beating representative flake. We'll see if everybody turns to be wrong on Tuesday.

>> Howard Fischer:
One of the interesting things, you suggest one of the issues is what do the people of congressional district 6 want. Flake would have you believe they sent me there to protect the taxpayers of this country. Barnes says, you're there to represent the district. You're there to get as much pork as you can get, damn it.

>> Michael Grant:
We thought when you were opposed to pork, we thought you meant for every other congressional district.

>> Howard Fischer:
Exactly. That's going to be a real key question to this, especially the other piece of what Stan Barnes said, flake said he's term limiting himself out which will make him a lame duck, so he won't have any influence. So don't don't you want to elect somebody that will be there to get all the pork you can get.

>> Michael Grant:
It impacts a come other races we're going to discuss as well but in the past 50 years only 5% of the challenges against incumbent congressmen have succeeded. You gave me another --

>> Le Templar:
Never in Arizona's history has an incumbent congressman been defeated by a challenge in his or her party. We actually have four races this year of the six, GOP and congressmen being challenged pretty seriously. So it's an unusual year. The question is whether they can pull it off.

>> Michael Grant:
Bart, one of those being the Rick Murphy-Trent Franks battle on the west side. They have been throwing some serious money.

>> Bart Graves:
They have been spenting a lot of money on my radio station, thank you very much. Rick Murphy is a very wealthy radio station owner, owns a bunch of stasis in Arizona and parts of California. His radio commercials are interesting. He continues to invoke Barry Goldwater's name, I shook his hand once, took out his trash once. But -- so he is appealing to that very conservative West Valley Litchfield Park district that sent Trent Franks to Congress. Trent Franks, of course, won princeably plea -- principally and that was a surprise to awful us but he turned out a lot of religious right to the polls and they put him in. So it's a tough one.

>> Le Templar:
The interesting thing in that campaign is the style, at least in the radio ads. When Rick Murphy, it's always him personally doing the whole ad, whereas Trent Franks is using some very official sounding announcer to read most of the advertisementment. I think that's supposed to give him the image of a trusted congressman, established congressman, even though he has only been there one term.

>> Howard Fischer:
The one exception is the ad having to do with the Medicare drug bill, which it's a really fun ad appeared there is a TV version where you have this Medicare drug bill which was all but dead and Trent Franks vowed to vote against it and after lobbying by the White House, the monster came back, and it's a cute ad.

>> Michael Grant:
Going to southeast Arizona, Jim Kolbe has faced numerous challenges. Randy Graff sitting lawmaker. Think he has a chance.

>> Howard Fischer:
I don't think he will have much of a shot but the one thing that will help him is proposition 200 being on the ballot. Randy is one of the early supporters of prop 200, of the whole idea we have to cut down on illegal immigration.

>> Michael Grant:
That's a hot issue in that district.

>> Howard Fischer:
Certainly, you've got portions of Santa Cruz and Cochise County down there and these are the people who see folks coming across the border, who see the burglaries, who see the problems that result. Now the problem that Randy has got is that much of the district is in east side of Tucson, which is not quite as reactionary, I don't know how else to put it, as much as rest of the Republican district down there. Kolbe survived a lot of challenges, the most interesting when he was sort of out by a magazine in Washington, and there was some question of can an openly gay congressman get reelected from Arizona. He could. This is going to be interesting, but I'm not sure that Graff can do it.

>> Michael Grant:
Legislative races, the Slade Mead-John Huppenthal thing, clearly I think the premier primary. Got any final thoughts on it?

>> Le Templar:
I know that Slade Mead is working very hard. He's -- because he is -- he has tapped volunteers from around the state who want to see him in to support the governor, that he's phone banking and walking door to door. John Huppenthal relying on his traditional campaign tactics which include mailers and auto-dialing. But once again, you have to point out, John has never lost an election. Who knows what's going to happen on Tuesday in that district.

>> Michael Grant:
Very Mead was candid is independents and moderates don't show up is he's going to lose that. The one thing that counts against that, is this is Tuesday after Labor Day.

>> Le Templar:
Absolutely. A huge number of ballot requests have come into Maricopa County, more than 225,000, and the question is, does that mean nobody plans to show occupy Tuesday and we'll have a slightly lower turnout than normal or is there so much interest in the primary because of the various races that we'll see a good turnout as on Tuesday and higher than average. People seem to think the lower is going to happen, which may benefit conservative candidates like John Huppenthal.

>> Michael Grant:
Bart, county races, do you think Dan Saban has a chance against Joe Arpaio?

>> Bart Graves:
That seems to be the number one question. I think -- you know, he doesn't have the enormous amount of money that sheriff Arpaio has. It's the final week. The final few days remaining before the election. He faces the same problem everybody else does, election right after Labor Day. That's going to work against him. But he is has been hammering away against Arpaio's credibility and all the scan I won't say scandals but controversy surrounding the sheriff. I think it may be close but I think Arpaio will pull it off.

>> Howard Fischer:
He has the endorsement of the Republicans of the state, but the funny thing is, people -- they understand that Joe is flawed. They understand that the county gets sued pretty regularly and that people who sue collect, but he's Joe. He keeps them locked up. He said, "i will never turn away an inmate. I will find the space.". People love the tents, the green baloney, the underwear and everything else is immaterial.

>> Michael Grant:
The race for county attorney takes up an entire ballot page. There's 143 people running.

>> Le Templar:
That's what happens --

>> Le Templar:
They're all Republicans.

>> Le Templar:
When you have long-time sitting incumbents in a relatively powerful position that gets lots of publicity retires and lots of people want the job. Right now on the Republican side, it's been most -- most of the tension has been between Andrew Thomas and Pacheco because people think they're the two front runners. I don't know if that's because of internal polling or they just have the widest bases in the Republican party in the county. On the Democrat side, those two candidates have been throwing lots of mud down here, Jonathan warshaw -- I heard something about one of the candidates getting fined this week by the county attorney's office but I don't know anything about it.

>> Howard Fischer:
What's interesting about the race, and we discussed this many times, in all years we've been here, when you have four, five, six people in a race, and you've got Andy Thomas, who has staked out this position as "I am the true conservative, I will protect the family." And everyone else kind of scrambling to fit everything else, and they split it. I mean, you talked about Trent Franks, Trent Franks is in Congress because there was a multiple-way primary and he had this little core of support and a plurality and not much more. I think Andy Thomas could wind up in the same position.

>> Michael Grant:
Late this afternoon State Bar of Arizona announced it was opening an ethics investigation into special prosecutor Mel McDonald that involved the proper disclosure of grand jury activities. Howie, the bar says that it reads the newspaper, too, I guess.

>> Howard Fischer:
That's what's interesting. Most State Bar actions start as a complaint from someone, usually whoever is on the wrong side of an issue or feels they've been wronged. This one started out when some members of the bar staff started reading the reports of the August 23rd order by judge Campbell. There were two functions in that order, number one, I'm not going to make the grand jury report, the 181 pages, public. And slapping Mel McDonald, accusing him of, quote, misconduct for two actions, number one is Mel filed an open petition to have that report made public. Now the funny thing is everyone knew the report was out there. So he didn't disclose anything there. But it resulted in this media frenzy to get the report and Campbell felt a lot of pressure. The other thing that happened is that judge Ballenger, the presiding criminal judge had said to Mel f you want to do more than just a criminal probe you come back to me and get my permission. Mel said it never expanded beyond a criminal probe yet it produced this 181 page report. Judge Campbell said you violated judge Ballenger's order, and I think that that makes you guilty of misconduct also. Now, what's interesting is the bar is opening up a complaint on some ethical violations. Ethical rules are sort of funny. There's some really broad general ones about, you know, having to do with proper conduct and respect for the courts. The other problem Mel may have is actually back in Campbell's court, because we asked the judge's secretary or the judge's press aide today, what about a contempt citation. The judge never -- the judge said, I wouldn't confirm or deny. That's going to happen. This is real interesting because of the fact that you've got Rick Romley, who is defending Mel McDonald, said he did the write thing. Romley is -- this is going to be a hot button issue. The bottom line for the public is we're probably never going to see that 181 page report.

>> Michael Grant:
No fresh talk this week on kind of the main story, which is the report remains sealed?

>> Le Templar:
Right, because Rick Romley said he won't make that appeal to two other grand jury investigations that result out of this investigation relating to other crimes that might have occurred at the prison, those are ongoing and he needs to conclude those before he can take it to the Court of Appeals, I assume, for fear of releasing even more information to the public.

>> Michael Grant:
We are almost out of time but I do want to touch on some key business leaders coming out to support some changes in the tax structure?

>> Howard Fischer:
Yeah, there was a citizens finance review commission report, you remember, came back last fall and suggested a whole bunch of changes in tax law, particularly reducing tax on business, shifting them to home ohmers. The governor ignored it then. Said I don't have time to study. It's now September and the governor is still studying it. They believe if they get pressure on the governor they can get them enacted and looked at. A lot of people agree business taxes are high in the state but the question is, it's like a balloon f you squeeze here to reduce the business taxes, how much more to homeowners pay?

>> Michael Grant:
Speaking of being squeezed, we're squeezed for time. If you would like to see a transcript of tonight's program, please visit our website at its new location, www.azpbs.org. When you get there, click on the word "Horizon" and that will lead you to transcripts, links and information on upcoming shows.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Flagstaff is home to the highest percentage of independent voters in the state. A percentage that is growing in numbers and political clout. Why are more Arizonans registering as independents? What role will that play this election year. Find out Tuesday at 7:00 on Channel 8's "Horizon" program.

>> Michael Grant:
Thank you very much for joining us on this Friday edition. Have an incredibly fine holiday weekend. Good night.

 

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