Thursday, April 13, 2006

Az CD 8- From The Comment Stream

I have brought up the following comments on the CD 8 race from the end of a long series of comments as worthy of note:

Have you noticed that she (Giffords) has what NO ONE ELSE in the race has - a progressive voting record?

Consider that she won an award for being the main sponsor of the mental health parity bill in 2004 - this was a goal of the late, great Senator Paul Wellstone.

She has voted to expand access to health care for kids and the working poor.

She had a 100% voting record from the League of Conservation Voters - a pro-environmental group.

She got a bill passed to get developers to put gray-water systems into new houses, allowing those houses to REUSE water.

She worked with neighborhood activists in Tucson to take on the billboard industry.

These are just a few of the things she's done in her FIVE YEARS in the State Legislature. And she did this before the other candidates even got involved in politics.

Isn't this the stuff we're all fighting for?

--
Posted by Deaniac to The Data Port at 4/12/2006 07:42:26 PM

5 comments:

Geo said...

Thank you for this post.

I think it's often easy for people who are on the sidelines like us (well, some of us more on the sidelines than others) to downplay sound experience and demonstrated success when it comes to elections.

Why is this? I think basically because there are a lot of intangibles that go into the "gut" feelings we often have to support one candidate or another. And these gut feelings aren't always reasonable.

I've seen this happen with people who lionize candidates because of some sense of affinity - because they're a veteran, they're "resolute", they talk about their religion or their family or whatever - without regard to the person's actual wisdom in judgment and putative ability to govern. Charisma and image thus often overcome sound policy awareness and demonstrated ability in government, which is unfortunate.

It seems to me that there are good things to say about a number of the candidates running in AZ-8. But none of them have Giffords' proven track record of sound judgment in championing progressive issues as an elected representative. In a rational assessment of candidates' fitness for office - one not based upon charisma, image or tangentially related life experience - Giffords reasonably tops the list.

As much as Latas and Weiss may strike folks as generally sound candidates (and I think they are), neither of them have the track record of proven governance that Giffords has. Yes, you could argue that Latas' being a veteran is a positive thing (and it is) or that Weiss' experience as a journalist and involvement in community development could be helpful and indicative of her skill as a possible US Representative (and it probably is, to a degree), but those are extrapolations of competence at governing in a representative public office, while Giffords has actually done it, and well.

And there's a pretty big difference, really.

Geo said...

By way of proof, it's hard to overlook Giffords' resume.

Geo said...

Joe,

I think I understand where you're coming from. As someone from a family of farmers, who has never really had a leg up in business or society from my parents, I sometimes find myself feeling resentful toward people whose family connections landed them nicer social situations than I have been able to carve out by my own hard work.

I can even find myself ascribing uncharitable attributes to people who have had it "better" than me, in this regard, or interpreting their actions through the grid of my consciousness of our different social positions. But before God, I have to acknowledge that its not a very constructive attitude on my part, and when I recognize myself succumbing to it, I try to be draconian in weeding it out of my thinking.

Your comment is a good example of what I was talking about in my earlier comment. You make many assertions about what kind of person Giffords is, based upon your gut feelings about her, and based less reflectively of what good she has clearly done in office.

In doing so, you've insinuated extremely unflattering things about her. You've suggested that she doesn't respect veterans, that she puts institutions before people, that she's spoiled and not a hard worker, she has no vision or conviction, that "she is either totally nuts, out of touch, or so afraid to take a stand she doesn't deserve my vote", she looks down on people like you, she is just talking to impress and has no understanding of life.

To be honest, this kind of heaping on of insult and ascription of bad faith is, in my life experience, more likely to be resulting from a visceral reaction against someone, rather than a rational disagreement with their specific views.

Regarding the rational side of it, I do wonder if what you're getting at could be framed thus:

"Giffords has more experience and a proven track record as an elected official than the other candidates, true. Nevertheless, I am SO dissatisfied with the KIND of successes she's had and my sense of her as a human being that I believe that another candidate, even one who doesn't have a scrutinizable track record as an elected official at all, is more likely to do a better job."

Is that fair representation of what you're saying? Not to put words in your mouth, of course. I know gut feelings are always going to be part of evaluating candidates. But I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from on a rational basis, which I find more constructive.

desertfox said...

Working Joe,

Giffords was 26 when she was working at Pricewatershouse. Her family called her back to Tucson because the business was failing. She could have said no. She started out changing tires.(Hardly the work of a rich little princess.) She then moved on to sales. Later, her family made her CEO when her father's health worsened. I'm sure she had other plans for her life...and could be very successful doing something else now. But she put her dreams on hold to help her family. I don't necessarily think that was handed to her on a plate. That's called being a good daughter.

Geo said...

Thank you, CHG, for those insights. It does help and illustrate the need to put one's feelings and impressions in context with the actual truth.

Knowing this about her also makes me appreciate Giffords even more.