SOLD OUT: Arizona has now had its say in the nation's presidential race--and we can take credit for resurrecting gazillionaire Steve Forbes from his political deathbed. With the $4 million Forbes spent in Arizona, he bought our votes fair and square--a true demonstration of the power of TV. Well, at least Pat didn't win--not that a third-place showing is likely to slow him down. We have to admit turn-out was higher than we expected--about one out of every three Republicans voted. That was certainly worth a couple million bucks of taxpayer money. And we love the fact that Forbes won with only 33 percent of that 33 percent--or about 11,000 more votes than the rapidly deflating Bob Dole--and still walked away with all 39 Arizona delegates, putting him in the lead of this oddball pack nationally. That winner-take-all rule was just another stroke of genius we can thank the Legislature for. Way to go, guys! One thing's for sure: The weird dynamics ensure the Republican tussle is going to continue through March. Pat still has the big mo, Dole has the party machinery, Forbes has enough money to keep going and Lamar has...well, a bunch of plaid shirts. And we're glad the show will go on, because we haven't had this much fun since the closing days of the 1992 race, when George Bush was screaming about how his dog Millie would make a better president than Bill Clinton. THE LAZARUS ADMINISTRATION: Lost in the shuffle among all the mainstream candidates in our first-ever, money-wasting presidential pageant was a dark horse from Phoenix, Charles Holden, who was invited to speak earlier this week at a pre-primary luncheon sponsored by the Tucson Republican Women. Holden took the microphone and started with a bang: "If elected president of the United States of America, I'll work for the establishment of world peace, psychological well-being, population control, a better standard of living for everybody in the world and towards the inevitable scientific achievement of reversing the aging process." But that was just the start for Holden, who also promised to "develop a program to replace most of the buildings in the United States of America; and give a new home to anybody who wants one by building manufacturing machines to produce building supplies from recycled and reconstituted materials, and construct buildings via remote control using computers." We later found a copy of Holden's speech, and discovered he had skipped over his boldest proposal: "Eventually, with the advancements of biotechnology and radio, science will bring people back from the grave, and we will begin the earliest stages of planning to schedule this inevitable scientific achievement of the future so people throughout the entire world will know: Those who have lost loved ones or spouses have hope with the progress we'll build in our great nation America." Now there's a campaign promise! Someone needs to let Holden know--dead people aren't much of a constituency, unless you're running for office in Chicago. GETTING A GRIP: Thank goodness the Tucson Police Department is finally getting a grip on the Naked Pueblo's chronic masturbation problem. They're putting the squeeze on bigtime, currently collaring in at least four foul-fingered fondlers a week, we're told. Sure there are four murders a week in this town, with bloody bodies flopping everywhere, and car thefts and burglaries up the yin-yang, but the terrible threat of guys playing with themselves alone in locked booths while they watch steamy VCR movies down at the local porno joint is what's really had us all too terrified to leave home. And thank goodness we're paying cops in record numbers to peek under those doors and catch those perverto bastards in the act. It takes a brave officer to reach up inside and unlock the booth and haul the perpetrator and his turgid little Mr. Wiggly out into the daylight. Frankly, we don't care if it costs us taxpayers $500 a pop--which it does--to put these self-molesting creeps in jail for the mandatory 10-day sentence, because, damn it, they shouldn't be touching themselves down there--even in the privacy of a locked booth. We're sure the hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs involved are well worth it, too. And thank God for zealous prosecutors like Bill Mills, who must be a deacon in his church or something, who pursues these weenie-waggers to the full extent of the laws of God and Man. So what if DUI offenders who could've killed someone frequently get off with lesser sentences in City Court--masturbation is a serious crime, even if its victims tend to smile immediately after its emission, er, commission. Yes, the cops are doing a real great job getting a handle on this viscous threat to our community. Next, we hope they'll be peeping in windows, looking for noodling no-goodniks ogling that porno channel on Tucson Cablevision, which, even though it's scrambled so as not to offend decent folk, can still be visually shocking to an unsuspecting, channel-trolling, God-fearing citizenry merely searching for the Disney Channel. And the audio is as clear as a bell--why, just the other night, as we were heading up the dial to CSPAN, we heard some woman moaning for some guy to put Mr. Wiggly in a smelly place where the sun doesn't shine. And she wasn't talking about Detroit. Too bad there's never a S.W.A.T. squad around when you need one. AND SPEAKING OF BONERS: Did you happen to catch that StarNet ad in last Tuesday's Star? Beneath the copy "StarNet--the next best thing to sex...," readers were treated to a photo of an older man in his bathrobe seated next to his computer. Protruding into the shot were a pair of shapely female legs, accented by a pair of sexy high heels. If you missed the ad, tough luck--spies tell The Skinny the switchboard at the Star lit up on Tuesday, with outraged readers shocked and appalled over the filthy marketing technique. As we understand it, the ad won't be running again. Mr. Wiggly is sad. WET WORKS: Thanks to a warning from The Skinny, the Tucson Mayor and Council avoided stepping in a pile of doo-doo deposited by anti-CAP members of the city staff. We'd like to think it was deliberate, because if it wasn't, that means the incompetence level at City Hall is beyond all comprehension. Anyway, the crap in question was included in the city's 1996-97 fiscal year budget. If we hadn't quietly pointed it out behind the scenes late last week, the Council and voters who supported anti-CAP Proposition 200 would have had to scrape it off their shoes. This was the setup: Shortly after Prop 200's November election victory, the Mayor and Council went round and round with Tucson Water staff over how to implement the proposition. The Council finally determined the best way was to involve the citizenry via public hearings. Newly elected west side Councilman José Ibarra wisely warned the Council and staff to produce an authentic hearing, not a charade. A short time later, staff presented the Council with a date for the public hearing--Monday, March 25, at the TCC Crystal Ballroom. However, The Skinny learned the Council was scheduled to consider the city's Proposed Five Year Capital Improvement Budget (CIP) for fiscal years 1996 through 2001--it was scheduled to do so on February 26, with final Council approval scheduled for March 4, well before the public CAP hearing. We also learned city staff had already factored many of Prop 200's important policy decisions into the CIP. Still other CIP policy issues were contained in the city's water bond prospectus, which was also due to be completed before the March 25 public hearing. (The city hopes to sell $40-million worth of water bonds sometime this spring. The bonds were approved by voters in 1994.) That's where we stepped in, and warned the Council, which then put off the CIP and bond decisions. They agreed that by the time they were ready for the public hearing, it would have been too late. Which is just what the out-of-control bureaucrats in Tucson Water would have liked. Obviously the schedule was contrived: Too many members of Tucson Water and the city manager's staff were involved not to notice the conflict when they were selecting the date of the public hearing. Isn't it nice to know voters' wishes are being so well served? THE BIG KAHUNA: Now that we're building a baseball stadium, it's time to recognize the big winner in this ballgame--Pima County Supervisor Dan Eckstrom. We've pointed out before that Eckstrom stands tall as the one Democratic supe who's been able to out-maneuver the GOP majority on the current board; Supervisor Raul Grijalva, the other Demo, has been happy to take a strong opposition tack and relax in the political security of his own heavily Democratic district. Eckstrom, on the other hand, plays it cool, taking his best shots when the opportunities occur--and thus out-foxes the GOP dorks. The Kino site for the new stadium is in the heart of Eckstrom's district, at a place originally proposed in 1991 by then-deputy county manager Bruce Postil and promoted by Eckstrom. The building and economic development--the good part of the deal--will happen on Eckstrom's turf. And the city taxpayers, who are also Eckstrom's constituents, will pick up the tab without seeing the costs as directly attributable to county government. Eckstrom's site is clearly less expensive than the downtown location Tucson Mayor George Miller was pushing. It's also clear Eckstrom out-maneuvered Miller. And let's not forget that Hi Corbett Field, which the city taxpayers will also be paying to renovate, is also in Eckstrom's district. Not bad for a minority Democrat. As Tammany Hall boss George Washington Plunkitt used to say, "I saw my opportunities and I took 'em."

		© 1995-97 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth