The Skinny

FINANCIAL TROUBLE

Is City Councilwoman Nina Trasoff turning into the underdog
in the Ward 6 City Council race?

The short answer: No, of course not. Most Tucsonans still don’t know
who her opponent, Republican Steve Kozachik, is. And even among
those who do know who Kozachik is, some still don’t know how to
pronounce his name.

On top of that, we still have partisan elections in Tucson—at
least this year. And there are still seven Democrats for every four
Republicans in Tucson.

But the latest campaign-finance reports suggest that Nina does have
a weak spot: As of Aug. 12, Kozachik had raised $41,536, while Nina had
only raised $32,426.

Sure, there’s lots of time for Nina to raise money, and she only
needs to raise about $50,000, total, to max out under the city’s
matching-funds program, which prohibits participating candidates from
spending more than roughly $100,000.

But her slow pace so far suggests one of two things: Nina either
isn’t as organized as she ought to be, or she’s having trouble getting
people to fork over contributions.

Neither is good news for Trasoff, who doesn’t just need to worry
about what Kozachik will do to lift his own name ID between now and
Nov. 3. She also needs to be concerned about how badly she’ll be beat
up in the fight over the Public Safety First initiative, which, if
passed, would mandate that the city increase the numbers of police and
firefighters over the next five years.

Incumbent Democrats aren’t too excited about the measure, which
could cost the city as much as $50 million a year once it’s fully
implemented. But the GOP challengers are embracing it as a club they
can use to portray the incumbents as soft on crime.

The initiative will be well-funded. The Tucson Association of
Realtors dropped another $100,000 into the campaign on July 2,
according to campaign-finance reports filed with the city last week.
The committee had nearly $94,000 in the bank as of Aug. 12.

And there’s still the question of whether an independent campaign or
two will wade into the city races, as we’ve seen in recent years. Nina
herself raised the possibility a few weeks ago at a council
meeting.

The key to GOP victory is a pretty simple formula: Get Republicans
to turn out, and drive down Democratic participation. If there’s one
thing that the tea parties around town have shown, it’s that the GOP
base is fired up to go after Democrats. That leaves us with one
question: Are Tucson Democrats fired up about keeping Nina on the
council?

Meanwhile, in Ward 3, Republican Ben Buehler-Garcia is
showing some solid organization in his race against incumbent Democrat
Karin Uhlich. Buehler-Garcia has collected enough $10
contributions from city residents to qualify for matching funds, which
will double the $26,029 that’s he’s gathered in contributions.

Uhlich has already raised $45,185, and has also qualified for
matching funds.

IN SICKNESS …

Sen. John McCain came to the defense of his old pal-pal, the
well-known Facebook pundit Sarah Palin, on one of the Sunday
chat shows over the weekend.

This Week host George Stephanopoulos asked McCain
about Palin’s weird outburst regarding how the “America I know and love
is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have
to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can
decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity
in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is
downright evil.”

Of course, as those of us in the reality-based community know, there
were no such death panels in the bill, although there was a provision
that Medicare would cover the cost of a consultation about end-of-life
options. It sure would be swell if we lived in a world where everyone
lived forever, and we were free of such worries, but so far, neither
Republicans nor Democrats have been able to deliver that. Until that
happens, perhaps having Medicare cover the cost of a doctor-patient
consultation over some of the toughest decisions that people ever have
to make might be a good idea.

Conservatives, however, have been reluctant to give up on the “death
panels” as a key problem with health-care reform legislation—and
even though the claim has been thoroughly debunked, McCain essentially
enabled them by claiming that one day, death panels would be darn near
inevitable, whether or not they were included in this particular
bill.

“Doesn’t that lead to a possibility, at least opens the door to a
possibility of rationing and decisions made such that are made in other
countries?” McCain asked Stephanopoulos.

It’s a nutty argument, but it does demonstrate that Republicans are
willing to continue saying just about anything to distort the
debate.

POLISH UP YOUR PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES!

Speaking of our ongoing health-care debate: A local bunch of
conservatives have been pretty riled up about their inability to
confront Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at a town-hall
meeting. They’re ticked off that Giffords instead had a Congress on
Your Corner event, where she talks with people one-on-one, even though
she’s been doing that kind of meet-and-greet since she was first
elected.

The tea-partiers were so incensed, in fact, that they crashed a
downtown movie night with their protest signs, because Giffords was
sponsoring a showing of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The irony
there hardly needs to be underlined.

Well, Giffords has now scheduled three town halls, so get ready for
the fireworks. Giffords will be at the Buena Performing Arts Center,
5225 Buena School Blvd., in Sierra Vista, from 6 to 8 p.m., Monday,
Aug. 31.

Giffords will then host two town halls on Tuesday, Sept. 1. The
first will be at the West Social Center, 1111 Via Arcoiris, in Green
Valley, from 9 to 11 a.m. Later in the day, she’ll be in Tucson at
Saguaro High School, 545 N. Camino Seco, from 6 to 8 p.m.

HAIL HIGHTOWER

Author, radio commentator and hell-raisin’ Tucson Weekly columnist Jim Hightower is coming back to town to fire up the
Democrats.

Hightower, whose most recent book is Swim Against The Current:
Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow, will be joined at this here
hootenanny by Tucson City Council candidates Karin Uhlich, Richard
Fimbres and Nina Trasoff.

The party is from 6 to 8 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 30, at the Temple of
Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. If you can’t afford a $35 ticket, stop
by afterward for a book signing. Got questions? Call 326-3716.

PARK IT

Congressman Raúl Grijalva will be joining Sen. Mark
Udall of Colorado at the National Parks Family Expo at the UA’s
Centennial Hall this Saturday, Aug. 29.

The day will include a chance to learn about national parks and
other family-friendly fun from 2 to 4 p.m., followed by a screening of
the film The National Parks: America’s Best Idea at 4 p.m., and
a panel discussion with Grijalva and Udall and moderated by Arizona
Illustrated anchor Bill Buckmaster on the “State of the
National Parks” from 5 to 6 p.m.

The event is sponsored by Arizona Public Media, the Morris K. Udall
Foundation, Friends of Saguaro National Park and the Western National
Parks Association.

This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2009.