Slade Mead Gets UK Coverage

by David Safier

It’s always nice to see folks “over there” acknowledge one of Arizona’s finest, especially when he’s a brother blogger. So I was pleased to see Slade Mead’s name come up in the “On the Road to the White House” blog in the U.K.’s guardian.

When Mead ran for Ed Supe a few years back, I hosted an event for him in my home, and now I follow his blog, The Dry Heat, ’cause he knows more than me about lots of things, especially AZ legislature insider baseball. He served in the State Senate as something of a renegade Republican.

The Guardian post mentions his blog but mainly talks about his knowledge of the ultra-conservatives who control the Arizona legislature. I’ve heard Mead talk about their anti-education stance before, but it was good to see it in print.

In Arizona, I spoke with Slade Mead, who writes the blog The Dry Heat. In 2002, he ran as a pro-public education candidate and was elected to the Arizona Senate. But after his election, he recalls a discussion of the Republican caucus where members asked: “How do we dismantle public schools?”

“My blood ran cold. I couldn’t believe that I was listening to this conversation. I believe that the strength of our system is an educated populace,” he said. The Republican caucus wanted to dismantle public education to save money and to give vouchers to parents so they could send their children to religious or charter schools.

Republican candidates are running on pro-education platforms this year, because they know it polls well. I think that’s about as deep as their allegiance to public education goes. The new crop that gets elected (I’m hoping not from around here) will have their keep-education-funding-down marching orders given to them in their early training sessions, you can rest assured.

The Democrats are also running pro-education, but the difference is, they mean it.