In Conversation with LD 9 AZ State House Candidate Chris Mathis

I’m quite dissatisfied with the current state of political discourse in the United States. Too many sound-bites. Too little real conversation. Too much empty rhetoric and culture-war nonsense. Too little reflection on the real issues and challenges we face as a self-governing society. I think these are pretty common sentiments these days.

Luckily, I’m in a position to do my own little part to remedy the situation. I believe – and hope – that maybe there is an audience for real conversations about the public interest and public policy that can inform and deepen the public discourse and really get to know those who want to represent us. To that end, I have begun a project that I hope will invite a demand among those who wish to play a role in our politics to discuss public matters at greater length and in greater detail than they are usually able through traditional media.

I am fortunate to have the luxury of a channel of public communication limited only by the time and attention of my audience. So, I decided to push the envelope of what’s possible and normative in local politics by making at least some local political candidates accessible and knowable in a way that is uncommon, if not unprecedented – outside seeking them out and arranging to have an extended conversation with them yourself.

I decided that I would start by recording and sharing real, unscripted, in-depth discussions with some of the folks who have decided they would like to represent me, and my immediate community, in our state government. I hope that the result will be as stimulating and informative for an audience as it has been for me, personally.

If the response is positive and the participants find it to be of benefit, then I hope this little seed might grow.

Right now, I am reaching out to those who have stepped forward to be nominated to replace one of my state House representatives, Randy Friese, who has submitted his resignation effective November 15th. Right now, I am open to participation in this experiment by anyone who is aiming for an appointment to complete Randy’s term, and/or who has filed to run in the ’22 primary to be elected to a seat in the newly-drawn district in which I live. I reiterate my invitation to all those fine folks to contact me (MBryanATgmailDOTcom) and participate in this conversation. To any others outside LD 9 interested in having such a conversation, I extend an invitation to arrange to participate in the coming months.

As of writing this post, two candidates who have put themselves forward for both the appointment to Dr. Fiese’s seat and the primary in ’22 (in which both state House seats will be open, as Pam Powers-Hanely will not be seeking re-election) – Chris Mathis and Nathan Davis – have taken me up on my invitation and sat down for an open conversation about their opinions and commitments foundational to what they want to accomplish by running for public office. My aim is to listen more than I talk and to penetrate to the bedrock of their character and concerns that led them to seek public office. I don’t seek to summarize their campaign platforms; I seek an understanding of their views, why they seek the job, and what their concerns for our country and state might be.

This post features my discussion with Chris Mathis, who will be appearing at the Democrats of Greater Tucson via Zoom next Monday, November 15th at noon. My hope is that some of those who find our conversation interesting might attend and ask Chris their own questions. DGT is free to attend, and open to all.

Next week, I will post my conversation with Nathan Davis, which I recorded yesterday.

I sat down with Chris for our conversation here in Tucson at Ghini’s French Caffe & Bistro (a local business that I highly recommend). The result was far from perfect technically (solely through my own faults, as I am still learning by experience how best to capture these conversations), but very illuminating as to Chris’ background, character, and ideas. I hope you will enjoy and share this video with others in our community.

I’m not going to try to summarize our conversation for you, dear readers. I think to do so rather misses the point of this experiment. I will, however, contextualize our discussion of Chris’ wife, Colleen, early in our conversation with this link to the story of her time as AZ IRC’s Independent Chairperson, as those not familiar with the story may be confused by her prominent inclusion in our conversation.

We are also playing with a new toy here at BlogForArizona, a service called Descript, which automatically creates a simultaneous transcript of a conversation. It’s far from perfect, but it’s pretty good and the transcript is searchable and will take you to the point in the video which you select in the transcript. It is exactly this sort of service that your donations allow us to try. Enjoy, and let us know what you think in the comments.

We are also publishing a podcast version of our conversations for those who just want to listen, and don’t care about the video. It’s still pretty primitive, but the production quality and presentation will improve over time as we figure out what we are doing 🙂

BlogForArizona’s Podcast page.

You can also search for us (‘BlogForArizona’ – all one word) on Audible, Spotify, Apple podcasts (any day now…), and your favorite podcasting app. We are just getting set up, so the production quality is sometimes an issue, as is the syndication distribution, and the artwork, and, and, and, but we’ll improve along the way.