Stanton: Latas Supporters Need Not Belittle Frontrunners. Tucson Citizen, 2/21/06
By Billie Stanton
Tucson Citizen
The race to replace the venerable U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe already has devolved into ugly sniping - and not by the candidates.
No contingent in the Congressional District 8 race to date has been more vitriolic than the supporters of Jeff Latas.
I appreciate Latas’ military service. And the fact that the former Air Force pilot opposes the war in Iraq - though his son fought there - endears him to me even more.
But the folks crowing on his behalf spend more energy belittling the race’s front-runners than lauding their man Latas.
They blast Patty Weiss as unqualified. Granted, her chief asset is name recognition she accrued in 30 years reading a teleprompter on television news.
She knows it, too, and recently had her surname legally changed to her TV-fame moniker, Weiss (her former husband’s name, not her current one), because the ballot must show the candidate’s legal name. Weiss doesn’t even live in CD8, though she does own property there.
Still, she gets off easy compared with how Latas’ lemmings are lambasting Gabrielle Giffords.
A letter in last week’s Tucson Weekly snipes: “If Giffords inherits Jim Kolbe’s office the same way she inherited her dad’s tire shops . . . ” Reality check: Giffords left a great gig with Price Waterhouse in New York when her ailing father asked her to come home and take the helm of his business.
He stepped down and she stepped in. Where I come from, that’s called being a good daughter.
Besides, as president and CEO (never owner) of El Campo Tire Inc. from 1996 till 2000, when the family sold the business, Giffords kicked butt.
That was no surprise.
The Fulbright scholar already had worked as a binational business development planner for San Diego Dialogue. At Price Waterhouse, she had been an associate for regional economic development.
That explains how Arizona’s youngest legislator - a freshman Democrat from Tucson in a state house ruled by Phoenix-area Republicans - was named to the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee.
She also served on the Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee, Ways and Means Committee, Joint Legislative Audit Committee, Tax Reform for Arizona Citizens Committee and the Governor’s Hot Team on Economic Development.
If Giffords didn’t know anything about business, it’s doubtful that the Arizona Technology Council would have named her a Top 10 Tech Legislator for three consecutive years. But it did.
The most asinine attack on Giffords, though, came in a letter in the Tucson Citizen last Thursday.
That writer complained that Giffords “was the youngest elected to the Legislature, is not married and has an astronaut for a boyfriend . . .”
So youthful achievement is a flaw?
I wouldn’t have bet on a young Tucson Democrat excelling in our conservative and cantankerous Legislature. But by all accounts, Giffords did just that. Would it have been better if she’d done so at a ripe old age?
As for her single status: Get a grip.
I’m single. Gov. Janet Napolitano is single. Many women legislators in Arizona are single.
Alex Rodriguez is single, too. Does that disqualify him to run for CD8? Funny that these critics never question a man’s marital status.
The fact that Giffords, Napolitano and many in the Legislature are both single and female - yet manage to deftly represent us - only adds to their credibility.
So far in this race, the candidates themselves haven’t stooped to personal attacks. Too bad the Latas gang can’t show that same grace.
