Michael Bryan

I recently added a link to the Arizona Daily Star’s forums to my right sidebar. I think that such a place could be a useful for community discussion of important public issues, and some candidates for public office are posting there regularly. I chose to recieve daily updates of new forum postings, and one of the posts which caught my attention was one by CD 8 Democratic candidate Dwight Leister.

I certainly agree with his underlying premise – that money is corrupting our political values – but I suspect that Dwight may be taking the give and take of politics rather too personally. Certainly, he needs to focus on things like grammar when addressing the public in an open forum. I haven’t met him personally, so I am not going to form any firm opinion of him based only on a forum posting, and I urge you not to do so either. But I will say that Mr. Leister needs to be concerned to present an air professionalism that does credit to what I am sure is an earnest and informed desire to serve the public welfare.

Oh, and if you are going to call Gabby Giffords a political whore who is frolicking on a bed of special interest money, just come out and say it Dwight; it serves no one to thinly veil one’s imprecations under a barely plausible veneer of deniability. After the jump, Dwight’s post without editing:

Despite the ideological trope that capitalism is somehow the natural
state of human economies, and that any government regulation risks
causing the ‘invisible hand’ of the market to bitch-slap us all, the
truth is that capitalism depends entirely upon a very complex body of
law and social norms. Without the proper legal incentives to channel
self-interest into benefiting society, Wall Street begins to behave
like La Costa Nostra with better tailoring.

In the aftermath of the massive corporate failures that have
characterized the past several years, it is easy to overlook that those
failures where not due mainly to criminals doing illegal things, but to
ethical people doing business as usual. Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Global
Crossing and other now infamous business failures were only the
rottenest apples in a bad barrel; not aberrations, but an extreme
example of what we have allowed to become quite representative examples
of the massive and widespread failure of corporate governance.

OK. I give in. Friday Dog Blogging has become such an entrenched and venerable institution that I can no longer resist. But I am one-upping… I am blogging not only cute doggies, but doggies WITH adorable kids. How can you resist? You just have to say, "Awwwww…." Don’t try to resist; you could hurt yourself … Read more

Last week I interviewed Patty Weiss, former Southern Arizona
newscaster, and currently a candidate for the Democratic nomination for
the Congressional District 8 seat being vacated by Jim Kolbe. I have to
confess to a staggering feat of amateurism; my tape of the interview
came up blank. Luckily, I have a good memory, took some notes, and
Patty was kind enough to review my notes to ensure that they accurately
reflect her positions. As a result, the responses I attribute to Patty
on the issues I raised are at best paraphrasing, not quotes, though she
did sign off my recollections.

My impression of Patty was that she is a very intelligent and
articulate person, the sort that might overwhelm less active
intellects, and garner a certain reputation from the envious or less
able. She is well-spoken, as one would expect from a professional
communicator, but I never got the feeling she was just stringing
together talking points, though, of course, there was some that,
naturally. There were also moments when she was less guarded than any
professional politician would have been and that could, unfortunately,
cause her some embarrassments in the future.

It is obvious that Patty is not just ‘interested in politics’ (a quote
that has been used widely to cast her as a dilettante); rather Weiss is
possessed of a well-considered viewpoint on the issues. Anyone who
thinks that Weiss is a less than serious candidate, or one who will
turn off the electorate upon greater exposure is in for a rude
awakening. She looks great on TV, and has charisma. The wildcard may be
how she fares in face-to-face retail politics. I suspect that she will
be better than most. In my opinion, Weiss is likely to exceed
expectations upon greater exposure and develop into a formidable
political contender. Her wide name recognition could very well
translate into wide electoral support as voters come to know her and
like her in this new role.

UPDATE 2/28/06: Blue in AZ at Daily Kos attended several panels with the candidates and transcribed their position statements on the Iraq war. There have been comments on this post that Patty’s previous statements about what to do in Iraq differ from how she answered me. I’ll let you review the record and decide for yourself whether that is the case or not.

It will come as no surprise that Bush’s controversial, and illegal, domestic wiretapping program is becoming an issue in the Kyl-Pederson Senate race. Kyl is a staunch Bush supporter and chairs the anti-terrorism Senate subcommittee. He is unflinching in reeling out the Administration’s descredited justification for the program at the drop of a hat and … Read more