Senator Al Melvin was giving out media advice yesterday, but we couldn’t help but notice that the Tucson Weekly fell neither into the “do not read” category (the Star; the Republic) or the “do read” (the Southern Arizona News Examiner, where Emil Franzi and our own Tom Danehy have the freedom to discuss the FX show Justified; the place where attributions and bylines are just a dream, the Arizona Daily Independent).

We really need to know what Al Melvin thinks of us, so we sent him a tweet to get some clarification:

But, as of the writing of this post, no answer from the Senator.

Can you help us, Twitter-using readers of The Range? Sen. Melvin generally doesn’t seem to reply when he’s tagged on Twitter, but maybe if a few people ask on our behalf?

This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2012.

The editor of the Tucson Weekly. I have no idea how I got here.

16 replies on “Can You Help Us Find Out If Al Melvin Likes the Weekly?”

  2. He will never comment. He does not respond to emails, tweets, or phone calls if you are not a republican. I have been trying to have a discussion with him for years . Good luck

  3. Al Melvin is extreme in his conversatism, and even though I am Republican he is way too far right for me. Having said that I can still say with great conviction that he is far better than your dream girl Nancy Pelosi. She would read The Tucson Weekly except as you well know she does not read things until after she has voted for them.

  4. Our dream girl, Nancy Pelosi? You’re making a wild assumption without enough data, buddy.

  5. Cap’n Al’s busy right now, patrolling the border and looking for nuclear waste sites outside of Saddlebrooke. I hear he’s looking very closely at a site in Marana.

  6. Oh come,come Dan; seeing your readership and I have to “ASSUME”that they gravitate towards Nancy with the smiling face?….matthew hit it on the head……thanks matt…

  7. So it’s okay for you to be sarcastic about Melvin but not okay for me to be sarcastic about Pelosi. My use of “dream girl” was obviously a sarcastic exaggeration. The reason I think you must like Pelosi is that I doubt that you have ever said anything negative about her, even though she is the laughing stock of everyone not on your side of the political fence. If you want to talk about politicians who are jokes, how about discussing the hilarious Tucson political machinery that is responsible for Rio Nuevo?

  8. Al Melvin, who unfortunately is the state senator from my District, is very conservative. He also is a complete jerk.

    Most of the happy folks in Oro Valley and Saddle Brooke (our own Maricopa County subdivisions) seem to really love the guy! (They used to really have a bromance with Pinal County Sheriff, and erstwhile state representative candidate, Paul Babeu, but I bet that’s cooled a great deal recently!).

  9. Matthew: Your argument is completely goofy. You’re comparing Al Melvin–a local politician–to Nancy Pelosi, who is not local. With extremely rare exceptions, we cover local issues, not national ones. So, you should be comparing Melvin with another, say, local legislator, or at LEAST a local congressperson. And, yes, we have been critical of local Democrats many, many times. Enough with the Pelosi crap. That’s a red herring.

  10. Mr Boegle for the win.
    Come back next week matthew, you can tell us how great antenori and arpaio are.
    Was this a joke or sarcasm?
    Tune in next week, same teabagger time, same teabagger channel.

  11. Fair enough, Mr. Boegle, then let’s compare the harm Melvin is doing against the harm the Democrats administering Rio Nuevo are doing. It’s ideology on the one hand, and incompetence and possible fraud on the other. Melvin has power only as one member of the legislature and can do little actual harm on his own aside from infuriorating everyone but right wingers, but Rio Nuevo seems to have become a conspiracy to bilk the taxpayers. Tucson sends a quarter billion down the Rio Nuevo drain but has almost no money to fix the potholes. Government in Action. Of course the Star blames it on Republicans in Phoenix, says the funds are not interchangeable, etc. I think those are just flimsy excuses for a rotten job performed here.

  12. Mr. Bartlett, my first post said I am opposed to Melvin. I do not support Antenori or many of the antics of Arpaio. I am far, far from a Tea Partier. I won’t join my local Republican club because they are too conservative for me. You are only reading into my post what you want it to tell you, and it seems to be all black or white for you. The only thing you didn’t accuse me of is watching Fox. I don’t.

  13. Matthew: You think Democrats are administering Rio Nuevo these days? You might want to look into that further.

    Listen, you made the same lazy remark about Pelosi that thousands have made before. I couldn’t possibly speak for anyone on the staff other than myself, but I’m no fan of most Democrats on local or national stages, Pelosi included. I thought it was funny to rib Sen. Melvin a bit, especially considering he uses Twitter as a bully pulpit and not actually in any “social” way whatsoever. I despise incompetence and arrogance from public servants, regardless of party. You can try to paint me with whatever brush you like, but try to actually read what I’ve written first.

  15. Thanks, Mr. Gibson, for continuing to humor me. My mentioning Pelosi’s little quirk may be stale, but I actually thought it was kind of cute in the context of whether she might read the Weekly, along with her aversion to reading before acting. It may be lazy not to find another metaphor, but I think she defined everything about herself in that moment.

    I promise to read as many of your articles as possible so as to hear the other side of your political views. I have only noticed the anti-Republican ones and look forward to reading an anti-Democrat (or pro-Republican) one occasionally.

    And, I am curious. When you imply that Democrats are not administering Rio Nuevo these days, are you saying they are not at fault for any of this? Did the City Council never have a say in it? Do you think it’s the cretins in Phoenix who did all of this to us? I know it’s a complicated issue but I’m just trying to learn here.

  16. We need someone other than Al Melvin to represent us in our district. In his first senate race, he defeated an excellent Republican legislator, Pete Hershberger, by condemning him for working with democrats to actually pass legislation that helped ALL in our district as well as Arizona. Why would working WITH Democrats to find the best solution make a person a bad legislator? Each of Melvin’s arguments AGAINST Hershberger made me want to vote to Pete. I hope someone reasonable runs against Melvin this time around.

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