Sunday, August 5, 2007

How predictable: Media rip Republicans

State GOP chair Randy Pullen had a great op-ed in the AZ Republic today on the Republic's distorted coverage of Republicans' popularity. Funny, the article isn't even available online. Sort of proves the point that The Republic is biased don't you think?



There are some things one comes to accept in life: Democrats will always choose government over the private sector, liberals will always attack on personal issues when they can't beat conservatives on policy matters, and in Arizona, The Republic will always print non-sequitur editorials claiming the majority party in the state, the Republican Party, is on the edge of collapse.

Case in point: the editorial last Sunday titled "A party in free fall" in which The Republic's editors warned, "In terms of national stature, these are dark hours for the Republican Party." To back up this statement, the editors spoke of CBS News polls heralding an impending Democrat White House victory. They neglected, however, to mention that most national polls also question whether a Democrat can win once you put the most likely name to that Democrat: Hillary Clinton.

She is, after all, a figure so divisive, so beleagured with scandal, that returning to the White House may simply not be in the cards for New York's junior senator with a part-time Southern drawl.

The Republic's editors hen gleefully noted Democrat fundraising successes on Wall Street, followed by a misinterpretation of a conservative columnists's article in which he did not "conclude" that the nation's electorate was shifting leftward, but rather "mused" what would happen if it did.

The irony is of course, that it seems that it was just yesterday, after the 2004 elections, that the media were concerned about the demise of the Democrat Party.

Worst, however, the last third of the editorial was devoted to yet another Republic smear campaign of Republican state Rep. Russell Pearce, who played a lead role in passing the workplace enforcement legislation signed by Gov. Napolitano.

As recently as last week, that new law was supported by 73 percent of likely general-election voters statewide in Arizona. The Republic didn't mention any of this, but rather chose to stoke the fires of the "politics of hate" by talking about an unfortunate comment made by Pearce during a heated moment in the immigration debate.

Rather than print intellectually stimulating opinion pieces, The Republic continues to prey on people's worst fears. Arizona voters and, I surmise, by its shrinking subscription base, The Republic's readers are smarter than to buy into any of that nonse. It's a shame what serves today as our state's largest newspaper is so out of touch with the people of Arizona.

While the Arizona GOP is standing firmly alongside a majority of Arizonans on issues such as border security, job creation, increasing teacher pay and stronger schools, tougher sentences for child predators and other issues, in reality, it's The Republic that's out of touch and in free fall.

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