A note to politicians: If you put a poll online, the results could be hijacked by someone not entirely sympathetic to your cause.
It’s not rocket science, really: Once you put something online, it’s largely out of your control—yet state Sen. Frank Antenori must have been shocked that people were telling him that they did not want him to run for Congress when he pulled down a Facebook poll last Thursday.
It’s no secret to anyone that Antenori has sights on more than just a part-time gig as a state senator, so when he engaged in the now-standard political trope of pretending to care about the public’s input regarding whether he should run for Congress, the initial response on his Facebook page was largely encouraging.
However, when I saw the poll he put up, I wanted to make sure his poll received an appropriate sample size. Plus, the options Antenori presented were a little narrow, so I added “resign and move out of state” as an option. It turns out that readers of The Range, the Tucson Weekly‘s daily dispatch, seemed more supportive of the resignation option than anything else—and before too long, the poll mysteriously disappeared.
I guess Frank Antenori only likes the public’s opinion when it matches his own.
The Week on The Range
We covered Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal’s verdict on the Mexican-American Studies program at the Tucson Unified School District; examined an audit of the program, done by a company picked by Huppenthal, which did not seem to share the same sinister view of ethnic studies expoused by Huppenthal; and we followed the response to the whole mess. We also watched mayoral candidates get removed from the ballot, and cheered when Gabrielle Giffords temporarily returned to Tucson.
We looked at the term of Robert Shelton as he left the University of Arizona for the brightly colored blazers of the Fiesta Bowl, and announced that Eugene G. Sander would be his interim replacement; followed the managerial chaos of local talk station The Jolt; gave some career advice to Frank Antenori; and mentioned that if you hate your children, there’s always Tea Party Summer Camp.
We let you know that the old Berky’s space on Speedway was becoming a sports bar complete with 3-D TVs; let you know a spaceship was coming to town; and complained that the Arizona Daily Star seemed to be outsourcing local political news.
We compared the emotional arcs of Family Guy and South Park; listened to the new acclaimed album from Bon Iver; recommended a few concerts; gave away tickets to see the Black Lips; and hung out with a bear taking a quick bath.
Comment of the Week
“Long, long ago / In a time way back when / There was a little station / That struggled to fit in …”
—We don’t get a lot of actual poetry in our comment sections, but TucsonWeekly.com member “Lamp543Stea” offered an extensive ode (the quote is just the intro) to KJLL AM 1330, aka The Jolt (Media Watch, June 16).
Best of WWW
We’re thankful to have a good relationship with students from the University of Arizona’s School of Journalism here at the Weekly, partially because we welcome the opportunity to pass our cynicism on to a new generation of writers and photographers, but also because we can share some of their work with you.
This summer, we’ll be running multimedia pieces from students in a summer class at the school—and we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by both the voice and the quality of their work.
First up is a look at Allegro, the magnificent gelato shop on Campbell Avenue and Sixth Street. Lydia Stern provides some back-story on the man who moved from Lake Como, Italy, to bring spectacular and unique frozen creations to Tucson.
This article appears in Jun 23-29, 2011.
Frank has been running for Congress since entering the Republican primary in 2006. My bet is he’ll never again enter a primary in which there is ‘serious’, as in Jesse Kelly, opposition. And wouldn’t it be entertaining to watch them trying to outshout one another at Tea Party events.
Unfortunately, the past liberal/Democratic bent of Tucson seems to be eroding. With the likes of Frank Antenori and Al Melvin “representing” Southern Arizona, Pima County and Tucson really have become almost irrelevant to legislative actions by the Arizona State legislature.
Maricopa County is now completely dominant and these Southern Arizona politicians just tag along, often throwing us under the bus.
My guess is readers of the weekly wouldn’t be voting for him anyway……..well I might but I’m guessing I’m not the majority.
Antenori represents my district–I’ve always voted against him–and he always votes with the “Phoenix block”. I’ve never felt like he votes representing the majority of people in his district. Maybe if he runs for higher office and fails badly enough, he’ll go away. I can only imagine that Republicans in this district just vote for the person with the “(R)” behind his name out of habit–bad habit. When they learn that he’s truly not representing the majority, maybe they’ll wake up and begin to realize they need to vote for someone looking out for their best interests.