Stop complaining about politics for a second and take some time to at least watch some of this video from last night's televised debate featuring four candidates for Arizona Governor: Governor Jan Brewer (Republican), Terry Goddard (Democrat), Barry Hess (Libertarian) and Larry Gist (Green).
Holy crap. Republicans, are you really OK with this? Jan Brewer is the best you can do? I don't care WHAT your political bent is: her content and behavior shows a disturbing and hostile arrogance and a lack of intelligence that is just flat-out OBVIOUS. Wow.
She cannot stay on topic. She cannot answer questions directly. She constantly aggressively interrupts, trying to turn the conversation away from sore points, yet doesn't even have anything to back up the points she tries to make. She uses her language to try to make the other candidates seem ridiculous, even when she comes across as nearly manic, painfully nervous, phony, and unable to respectfully take in information, synthesize it, and come up with thoughtful, reality-based responses with value to Arizona voters. Instead, I hear coached "talking points," which she seems to believe are enough to win over the public if she just repeats them over and over and over long enough. There is no depth nor logic to her thinking. She stumbles and rambles and embarrasses herself and her party, her state and her country.
No one like this should be in charge of a Dairy Queen, much less an entire state. Yet, she remains popular in Arizona, which tells you a great deal about those who support her. However someone like this got as far as she has is ponderous. "Ponderous" won't even cover it if she is re-elected, and she probably will be. This is how partisan politics play out now: fear and anger and apathy keep low-quality candidates in place, because voting party-line is what people do, no matter what. A terrible shame, and a terrible cost.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman