Debate gaffes trumped by headless bodies lie

I’m going to ask you to suspend reality while you read this column.

I’m going to ask you to forget that there are political parties. And I’m going to ask you to forget that we are a nation deeply divided between left-wingers and right-wingers with nary a middle ground.

I’m not always successful, but I try to do that as a general rule. I’m a registered independent and I try to vote for the person rather than the party or the ideology.

Believe me, it’s not easy. There is so much inflammatory claptrap being spread over the airwaves and the Internet these days.

But close your eyes and try to imagine a world without political parties and extreme ideologies, a world where the best person gets elected for all the right reasons. OK, don’t you feel better already?

Now I ask you to consider the Arizona governor’s race where incumbent Jan Brewer is taking on Attorney General Terry Goddard. If there was ever a no-brainer, this is it. On so many counts.

First, Brewer has close ties to the private prison folks. They’re the ones who were in charge of the Kingman prison where three very scary killers recently escaped.

When local CBS affiliate KPHO-TV Channel 5 launched an investigation into her private prison connections, she stonewalled them – and then cancelled all her ads on their station.

But it gets worse – much worse. Because the less than honest way she is dealing with the private prison issue has been trumped by an outright lie.

Brewer has been excoriated in media around the world for her headless-bodies-in-the-desert gaffe. You remember the story. Brewer told the media on several occasions that she had to sign SB 1070, Arizona’s controversial illegal immigration bill, because our state had become a very scary place – complete with murderous illegal immigrants leaving headless bodies scattered about the desert.

It wasn’t true, of course. There weren’t – and still aren’t – any headless bodies.

When reporters challenged her following the recent debate with Goddard, Brewer froze up and then, without answering, turned and walked away.

But as Shakespeare put it so well, “At the length, truth will out.” When she finally had to admit there were no headless bodies, she trumped one lie with another, implying she never said there were. The media had a field day replaying the video clips in which she talked about all the headless bodies.

Then there was her performance in the recent debate with Goddard. Because she is using public dollars to fund her campaign, she is required to do at least one, but she has made it clear she won’t be doing anymore.

And no wonder. That one debate was a total disaster, including a pregnant pause of 13 seconds during which she was speechless.

Here’s just a taste of how it went:

“I have ah [long pause] done so much and I just can’t believe we have changed everything since I have become your governor in the last 600 days. Arizona has been brought back from its abyss. We have cut the budget. We have balanced the budget. And we are moving forward. We have done everything we could possibly do. [another long pause and nervous laughter] We have, ah, did what is right for Arizona.”

It is painfully obvious Brewer has no plan, no vision, and, it would appear, very little upstairs with which to devise one if she were so inclined.

Yet despite all of the above, polls show Brewer is winning the election – by a landslide. Because she signed SB 1070.

Now I don’t care how you feel about illegal immigrants or SB 1070. It doesn’t matter. Because this election is not about something Brewer did yesterday.

There will never be another immigration bill for Brewer to sign. But there will be a lot of serious issues for our next governor to deal with – issues that are beyond the pale of a woman who is clearly out of her element.

We need to elect the next governor of Arizona based on what he or she can do, not because she affixed her signature to a bill.

At some point, we have to start electing people for the right reasons. Not because they’re Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives.

There are scoundrels, rogues, buffoons and idiots on both sides and at either end of the political spectrum. Personally, I wouldn’t vote for Rod Blagojevich (a Democrat) or Sarah Palin (a Republican) for dogcatcher.

But we do have to elect a governor in Arizona. And it would behoove us to elect the candidate most qualified to pull our state up by the bootstraps and get things working again.

What a great time to cast your vote for the person.