Weekly: Melvin refuses debates, boycotts major local media outlets

by David Safier

Wow. Just, Wow.

Tucson Weekly's blog, The Range, has an amazing piece about "Atomic" Al Melvin's strategy for the 2010 elections.

Basically, it comes down to "Run away! Run away!"

First, Melvin refused Cheryl Cage's invitations to a series of debates. Here's one of his reasons.

“I told her I’m busy,” Melvin says. “I’m going door to door.”

Right. He can't afford to take a few hours out of his "busy" schedule to sit down for a few debates.

And, Melvin says, there are already scheduled forums, though most of them involve all the LD-26 candidates, so Melvin and Cage have little chance to go head-to-head. If the voters want more than that:

Melvin says the voters can learn about the candidates on their own.

“I would encourage people to look at her website and look at my website,” Melvin says. “You know politics is education—there are many different ways for the voters to see the positions of the candidates.”

Right. Because there's far too much information about the candidates out there already. (As an extra bonus, Melvin's comment shines a revealing light on his educational philosophy, which seems to be, "Look it up yourself, dummy!" No wonder he thinks we spend too much on education.)

In fact, Melvin thinks there's such a glut of information, he wants to cut down on the amount we read about him in liberal bastions like the editorial pages of the state's major dailies, the Star and the Republic, and KUAT's Arizona Illustrated.

No, I'm not kidding.

Melvin says he and other southern Arizona Republican lawmakers are issuing a boycott of the major local media outlets until the news organizations hire at least one “center-right” person to their editorial boards.

“They’re totally slanted to the left,” he says. “There is nothing fair and balanced about it and we’re not going to be a party to it.”

Though they are still talking to reporters from the papers, Melvin says they will not have anything to do with the editorial boards—and will not participate in endorsement interviews.

“The outcome is so obvious from the beginning that it makes no sense for us to participate (in the endorsement process),” he said.