Last week, we made a video featuring our City High School intern, A. Greene, claiming that she was running for mayor—even though, as an 18-year-old, she had only registered to vote a few minutes before.
The premise was sort of a joke. We thought it would be amusing to propose her as a candidate, because the existing mayoral candidates are ... well, sort of dull.
Not that "likes" on Facebook are the best measure of popularity, but they do provide some perspective on whether people are getting excited about a campaign, since pushing a button on the world's most popular website is about all you can ask of people these days, allegiance-wise. It looks like Democrat Jonathan Rothschild has the inside track on becoming mayor, but even so, only 370 people are following his official campaign page as of this writing—so Tucson is hardly burning with buzz about his candidacy.
By comparison, however, Rothschild is dominating the race for "likes," with Republican candidate and anti-tax crusader Shaun McClusky at 185 followers, and Green Jon McLane with 65.
Saddest of all is Ron Asta's complete no-start of a campaign, which had one fan when I checked. I assume that fan is Asta himself, or the person he got to start up the page. I clicked the "like" button, just so he won't be lonely. Now he has two fans.
Maybe these are the candidates we deserve, but it seems like there's still room for someone that more people are willing to "like."
THE WEEK ON THE RANGE
We followed the fallout from the passage of the state budget; noted that state Rep. Carl Seel, a Maricopa County Republican, raced to New York City to meet with Donald Trump to talk birther theories; and pointed out that Sen. Jon Kyl backpedaled after making a wildly false statement—that 90 percent of Planned Parenthood's services were abortions. (Kyl later said that "his remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, an organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.")
We posted Tucson Weekly senior writer Jim Nintzel's twin appearances on Arizona Week and Arizona Illustrated; shared clips from all of Tucson's mayoral candidates (even the crazy ones) on Arizona Illustrated; noted that Weekly intern A. Greene was considering a mayoral run—and wasn't going to let some technicality get in her way; and looked at the latest twists in the ongoing debate between Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik and state Sen. Frank Antenori, with Antenori telling Inside Tucson Business that midtown Tucson residents don't pay taxes and instead "receive some government subsidy."
We followed the start of the Tucson Padres inaugural season; urged you to check out the Arizona International Film Festival; brought you photos from Adult Swim's Ragbag of Jollification stop in Tucson; and let you know that Bill Buckmaster was moving his radio show to a new station and time in June.
We told you that Bobo's on Grant Road was now open for dinner; told you how to get VIP tickets for this Saturday's Club Crawl®; wondered if Glenn Beck's next step would be embracing liberalism; and got pummeled at a Geeks Who Drink Arrested Development trivia throwdown.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
"Hey, Frank. I'm a midtowner—for 18 years. Been employed and paying hefty taxes to feds, state, county, city all that time. Where you been, other than eatin' snakes?"
—TucsonWeekly.com user "Midtown Dude" takes exception to Frank Antenori's contention that the center of town is freeloader central ("Antenori: Majority of Mid-City Tucson Residents Don't Pay Taxes 'Or Receive Some Gov't Subsidy,'" The Range, April 10).
BEST OF WWW
This week, we try to expand our horizons a bit with the help of the guys from 2010 Best of Tucson® winner Heroes and Villains, who give us their top three choices from the world of comics, graphic novels and superhero stuff for the month of April. With a run of comic-book-related films coming up this summer, it might be time to brush up on what you've missed.
Also, Tucson Weekly intern A. Greene's campaign for mayor continues. Since no one has responded to her call for e-mails on her candidacy, she had to make the tough decision on whether to stay in the race herself. Check TucsonWeeklyTV.com for full details.
