Arizona's First Political Blog

E-mail Anonymous Mike at zonitics4-at-yahoo.com

By Anonymous Mike, pseudonymously.

 
Horse Racing

Turf Paradise may not open until next month, but horse race coverage is already big in the AZ Republic.

Leave aside my previous post about the Republic's coverage of Phil Gordon, a man up for re-election next week, because the biggest coverage the paper gives him during the last week of the race is about his future ambition.

We all know Phil Gordon is going to win re-election and win big, really big. However is the purpose of the major newspaper in town to treat the electoral campaign as a celebration of personal triumph or as a time for community reflection?

Look to this blog post by Republic reporter Casey Newton titled "Mayor Reaches $1 Million Campaign Goal"

In the post we not only find out that the Mayor has reached his $1 million campaign goal, we find out this his sole challenger has only raised around $19,000. In addition Mayor Gordon has already spent more than $600,000 of it. The post goes on to list what various city council candidates have raised as well. You can see who's ahead in the race for cash, who's behind, and who still has money in the bank. All very nice.... who's winning and who still has something left for the stretch run. I felt like Mr. Newton was announcing the results of a telethon.

I might have missed it, but here's what Newton or anyone else in the Republic has yet to report or comment on:

1) Where did Gordon raise so much money from? Newton must have looked at the campaign finance reports in detail. Unlike other cities of comparable size, such as Houston and Philadelphia, Phoenix doesn't put such reports online but the Republic does have people on the payroll to go down to City Hall and get the paper copies. The Business Journal of Phoenix pointed out in March that there were a large number of real estate developers on Gordon's contributor list though I would expect that would hold true for any major politician in Arizona, but what about those who have business before the City?

2) Where's the money going? Newton points out that Gordon has spent more than $600,000 but you would be hard pressed to find a TV spot or radio ad put out by his campaign.

Hey if the Republic is going to treat politics as a sporting event and only focus on who's winning and losing then at least they can provide us with a box score
posted by Anonymous Mike at 12:58 PM