Getting to the homestretch...

I tried to do a complete writeup of the Tuesday night's forum, as well as the 2nd Pederson/Kyl debate and the Scottsdale Republic CD5 debate, both of which aired last night. However, due to some Blogger issues, I lost everything, and since I wasn't smart enough to composed the post offline first, lost means *lost.*

Oops. :)

Since the events, other than the already covered issue with JD's surrogate, Jonathan Tratt, were fairly uneventful (though interesting), I'm not going to try and do a complete writeup tonight.

However, I can give a few of my impressions of some of the goings-on.

On the Pederson/Kyl front, I have to say that Jim Pederson has made great strides as a public speaker, even in the 6+ weeks since I last saw him speak, at the AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic in Tempe. He will never be an 'electric' speaker, but he's now a decent one.

At both the Scottsdale forum and the Tucson debate (aired on KAET in the Phoenix area), he stayed animated and on message.

The "on message" part was never a problem, but the "animated" part was.

He's learned that the communication style that works with a small group of people that are working toward a common goal is very different than the style that works with large groups of strangers with disparate, even opposing, agendas.

[And I have to compliment all three candidates (Libertarian Richard Mack was at the Tucson debate, too], they may have differed on most issues and criticized each other frequently, but the disagreements were civil ones.]

He still has an uphill battle, but he now has the tools necessary to put him over the top.

Jon Kyl is a rigidly extreme ideologue with insane positions on Iraq and personal freedom, and he is actively working to bring about an imperial presidency in this country. [Other than those minor foibles, he's a great guy, really. :))] However, I will give him credit on one thing - he was openly jeered at Tuesday night's forum, and he handled it professionally and smoothly.

Now, that may be the only nice thing I ever say about him, so mark this date on your calendar. :)

On the negative side of the ledger for Kyl (other than his dogmatic, unrealistic positions), at the forum Tuesday night, the candidates were asked if they thought that the President's No Child Left Behind program lead to our schools "teaching to the test."

In his response, Sen. Kyl kept talking about "testing to the test."

I cut him some slack on this at the time, because it seemed to be an honest slip of the tongue.

Then I watched the second of the three televised debates between Jim Pederson and Jon Kyl.

During one part of the debate, Kyl criticized Pederson as someone who "would vote with John Kerry and John Kennedy."

Ummm...I'm beginning to think that maybe Jon is too close to President Bush, and that whatever Bush has is contagious. Jon needs to distance himself before he loses any more brain cells. :)

On the Harry/JD front, well, I've already covered the goings-on Tuesday night, but the Scottsdale Republic forum was interesting in its own right.

The gloves were definitely off between Harry and JD.

JD was on the attack, bringing up a lot of the stuff that he did press releases about this summer.

Stuff that has already been refuted, over and over. (Charlie Keating, again? C'mon JD...)

Dan Nowicki wrote in the AZ Republic that JD kept Harry "off balance."

I'm not so sure of that. During the "Horizon" debate last month, Harry was too tolerant of JD's rhetorical bullying. On Tuesday, he called JD on it whenever JD stepped out of line.

And he called JD on a LOT. :)

My personal favorite "JD-ism" came during the immigration part of the debate. At one point, Harry was making a point about JD's record, and JD piped in with "there you go again" Harry.

That quote was a straight up rip off of Ronald Reagan from a 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter.

That's not necessarily a problem, speakers quote other speakers all the time.

However, this quote was unattributed. Pretty typical for JD, though.

Last month at the forum at Temple Emanuel in Tempe, JD had a M*A*S*H moment, one where he ripped off a line from an early episode of M*A*S*H.

I guess that he considers this progress. Instead of ripping off liberals like Larry Gelbart, now he's ripping off conservatives like Ronald Reagan.

The debate will be aired on Scottsdale's CityCable11 all weekend and might be replayed on CSPAN. I recommend catching an airing if you can.

Overall, Harry did a good job this week. At the Tuesday night forum, he maintained his professionalism and composure during the fiasco that was JD's surrogate. During the Scottsdale Republic forum, he was much more aware of the camera than he was during the Horizon debate.

He didn't play to the camera like JD, but he did present himself, his positions, and why he's a better choice to represent CD5 than JD. And he did it very well.

Anyway, I've got more stuff, like a bit on the tonight's LD8 meeting that featured Israel Torres and an LD17 candidate forum coming up on Monday, but I'll cover that tomorrow.

G'night everyone!