Expect high-level campaigns
Forum foreshadows debate focused on issues in race for governor that will have voters marking ballots with confidence, not dread.
Two positive takeaways emerged from the Arizona We Want gubernatorial forum:
Between now and November, this state will enjoy a vigorous, high-level debate about its future.
A thoughtful, talented person will take the oath of office in January. We don’t know who that will be, but voters are being treated to a strong field of candidates. They’ll be able to mark their ballots with confidence, not dread.
The candidates made their cases at the first high-profile forum of the election. Hosted by the Arizona We Want Institute, it was live streamed by12 News, The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Each candidate had 15 minutes with 12 News’ Brahm Resnik to go into some depth on their positions.
While the candidates were never on stage together, they still managed to draw con- trasts and take subtle digs at each other.
On the Republican side, state Treasurer Doug Ducey and Secretary of State Ken Bennett made the case for phasing out personal and corporate income taxes, arguing that the economic growth their leadership would bring could replace the nearly $4 billion in revenue.
Former Mesa Mayor Scott Smith and former GoDaddy executive Christine Jones dismissed Ducey’s and Bennett’s ideas as empty promises.
Jones said you need to know where the money to pay for services would come from before phasing out any tax. Smith said it’s more important to take a broad-based approach to tax reform. “You can say a lot of things, but you need to deal with the real world,” he said.
The presumptive Democrat nominee, Fred DuVal, strongly opposed eliminating the income tax, but dodged the question of whether he would propose a tax increase.
Growth, he said, would take care of a projected deficit.
This debate is about more than taxes.
This debate is about more than taxes. It’s about vision, priorities and governing styles. It sets the tone for the campaign ahead.
It’s about vision, priorities and governing styles. It sets the tone for the campaign ahead.
Every candidate did well during the forum. But every candidate also faltered in answering certain pointed questions; they’d do well to learn from the experience. The most recent poll of likely Republican voters found nearly one-fourth have not made up their minds. The GOP nomination remains up for grabs.
This election will be about policy: taxes, education, jobs and the economy.
But it also is about more. Who can best keep Arizona off the TV comedy shows and repair its tattered image? Who can best unite a state with a demographic divide? Whites predominate among older residents, Latinos among younger residents.
These questions are tricky for the Republican candidates. While they generally agree that the next governor needs to fix Arizona’s reputation (“You shouldn’t have to apologize for being from Arizona,” as Jones put it), they tiptoe carefully in discussions of Senate Bill 1070 and SB 1062.
The voters in their primary are mostly in that older, Whiter group, and the candidates know it.
On immigration, they particularly stretch to the right, as if victory will be determined by who can eat the most scorpions for breakfast.
But once a Republican nominee is chosen, he or she will have to appeal to the entire body politic. In what should be a close election, the Latino vote may for once determine the outcome.
When September arrives, will the GOP nominee make that pivot? It’s one more question in what is shaping up to be what a gubernatorial election should be: an extended debate about our collective vision for the future of Arizona.