Yesterday I was walking on the campus of Arizona State University, and I noticed signs for a Governor's Forum that night. I couldn't attend, but I wondered if they had really gotten Jan Brewer to come out of hiding and meet her opponents and the public. Today's ASU State Press headline answered my question: "Brewer Absent in Tempe Debate." Of course Democratic challenger Terry Goddard was there, along with Libertarian Barry Hess and Green Party candidate Larry Gist, but as usual Brewer was a no-show. To express their outrage at Brewer's insistence on avoiding the public and media networks that don't rhyme with "box," some people dressed up like chickens.
Some attendees dressed up in chicken costumes and held signs asking why the governor wouldn’t debate. One man held a large sign shaped like a milk carton with Brewer’s picture — an allusion to missing persons advertisements.
You might recall after her infamous 16-second meltdown during the PBS debate in early September that Brewer said she would not participate in further forums with Goddard and the others, unless her large lead started to go south. Well, Jan, your previous 20-point lead is down to single digits, so don't you think it's time for a series of debates? Please, oh please!
A Governor's Office press release said she had a prior commitment, but no doubt one reason Brewer stayed away last night was the debate's setting: the campus of Arizona's largest educational complex. As Goddard explained, she isn't exactly a pro-education candidate:
Goddard said Arizona is “dead last” in the nation for funding public education, which needs to change. “Governor Brewer has slashed our K-12 system by $1.1 billion,” Goddard said. “And she wants to continue doing that.”
Except for bigotry, we're "dead last" in a lot of things these days. And her plan for the future? Cut programs that serve people, while strengthening policies that serve corporations, especially private prisons.
Gov. Jan Brewer’s campaign chairman and policy adviser is also a lobbyist for the largest private prison company in the country. Chuck Coughlin is one of two people in the Brewer administration with ties to Corrections Corporation of America. The other administration member is communications director Paul Senseman, a former CCA lobbyist. His wife still lobbies for the company.
A lengthy story in today's New Times, which deserves a diary of its own, details the immigration-private prison collusion in greater detail. Again, the benefactor of SB 1070 and the fear-mongering stew that Brewer keeps stirring is Couglin's corrections company:
[P]rivate prisons profit off the creation of newly minted "criminal aliens," with the U.S. Marshal for Arizona now shelling out $13 million a month — potentially $156 million a year — to Corrections Corporation of America to hold federal prisoners in Florence, Arizona.
Seniors Rebel!
Happily, people are starting to notice and speak up, even those you'd think might vote for Brewer. Two days before the ASU debate in Tempe, Goddard and the others participated in a candidates' forum at a Phoenix senior center, an audience usually supportive of Brewer. Once again she didn't show, which ended up as a video story on Channel 3 News, where lots of old folks slammed the Governor for "running scared." As Brewer's campaign spokesperson Doug Cole explained to the Arizona Republic,
"We've attended hundreds of events over the course of this campaign and have had to decline hundreds more" ... [he] acknowledged that Brewer was picking her spots.
Really? She's attended "hundreds of events"?! I follow the race fairly closely and except for the PBS debate, which Brewer had to participate in because she's using public funds, I cannot remember a single public event she's appeared at since summer, unless it was a scripted performance. And none of these "hundreds of events" paired her with Goddard, where voters would have an opportunity to compare the candidates' records and their plans for Arizona's future. She's "picking her spots" all right, she just doesn't let anyone know when and where they are.
Jan Brewer reminds me of Forrest Gump or Chance in Being There. She's been in the right place at the right time, and through no ability of her own, she's sitting in the Executive Office of Arizona's Capitol. Brewer has been around state politics for decades – mostly as a legislator where she did not distinguish herself in any way, good or bad. She was just there, a familiar name. So when she ran for Secretary of State, the Republican candidate in this very Republican state easily won, even though many people don't have a clue what the Secretary of State does. Then Napolitano left and we found ourselves picking through Gump's box of chocolates, only the core has soured from Brewer's close association with Senator Russell Pearce and other hateful people.
And so we're left with Brewer's formula for electoral success: sign SB 1070 with a flourish, then stay out of sight.
"Not a thought lifted from Chance's brain. Peace filled his chest." - Jerzy Kosinski, Being There