Tucson Weekly: Stupid Election Tricks (November 6

Stupid Election Tricks

The Dumbest Moves From The Recent Slugfest
By Emil Franzi
WE ALL KNOW that political campaigns generate more heat than light, that polemics are part of the American electoral process, and that a lot of guile is part of the deal. But some moments during the latest local election season were too richly stupid or obviously fraudulent to allow to pass without comment:
ON THE MINIMUM-WAGE INITIATIVE
PRO: The People's Congress for Social and Economic Justice had a moronic theory that businesses could just raise their prices to cover increased wages. They imagined these businesses were all restaurants, which doesn't account for those outfits that produce products for out-of-town markets or compete against other operations that have plenty of competitive advantages, from cheaper materials to market proximity.
Currents CON: The bogus TV spot designed to scare seniors, featuring poor old Mary, who purportedly lived in a nice house with her dog, surviving on $5,000 a year in Social Security benefits. Hey, anybody living on five grand a year wouldn't have a house and would have to eat the dog.
ON THE CITY COUNCIL PAY RAISE
PRO: The argument that low council salaries prohibit the poor from running for office. The poor, being poor, are too busy surviving to have time to run for office. Do you know anywhere in the country where convenience-store clerks and security guards have run for office, let alone been elected to anything? Besides, if they did happen to win, they'd collect the salary and no longer be poor.
ON THE WATER INITIATIVE
PRO: There were plenty of dumb moments on both sides of this debate, but the dumbest had to be Tucson Mayor George Miller's response to the deposition of former Water Director Kent McClain, who claimed he was told to stall recharge plans. Miller complained opposition ad man Terry Pollock was "destroying democracy" by releasing McClain's deposition, making people "cynical about their government." Yeah, George, same thing happened to the presidency under Richard Nixon. People got suspicious.
CON: Letting Ed Moore get within 50 miles of it.
ON ANNEXATION
PRO: In Catalina Foothills, insisting that you can have more government for the same price. In doing so, they dropped the accent on their two strongest selling points, self-determination and land-use control, which many folks would pay more to have.
In Casas Adobes, allowing their incorporation committee to be dominated by a bunch of paranoid, exclusive, self-aggrandizing duplicitous stiffs, who caused factions there to split about five ways. But, hey, how would you expect Ed Moore's friends to behave?
CON: Every time the incorporation people did something really stupid, the City of Tucson went them one better by announcing a new way to annex them all. Mayor Miller alone was worth 10 points to the incorporation people in both towns.
And either the dumbest--or most revealing--statement of the whole campaign was made by incorporation opponents who claimed Tucson could become "landlocked." Gee, we didn't know the city wanted a seaport, too.
ON THE TRANSPORTATION BONDS
PRO: Putting little signs at all those intersections and pretending our multi-billion-dollar problems will all be fixed with one little vote.
CON: Running a Tucson-centric campaign and failing to convince more non-Tucson voters that they'd be better off if the bonds failed because even more road money would come to them.

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