It appears that the Daily Star has a double standard regarding how they treat candidates. For the most part, in our opinion, Daniel Scarpinato tries to be as fair as his editors allow but it seems his stories try to find fault with one candidate yet ignore the gross faults of the other. This “editor’s mind set” is very apparent in this years CD-8 race between Tim Bee and Gabby Gifford.
A case in point is the Stars’ blatant effort to connect some wrong doing to Tim Bee because of a cable TV ad placed by a lobbyist group which represents 16 school districts. It seems that the Career Ladder Bill (HB1488) is in the best interest of 16 school districts so they hired lobbyist John Kates, to plead their case and do public relations work to help passage of the important bill. Mr. Kates as part of his public relations effort on behalf of the 16 school districts produced a 30 second spot thanking Senator Bee for helping pass this important legislation. This is what Mr. Kates is paid for, developing strategies to benefit his clients (16 school districts) and further their goals in terms of future possible legislation.
I guess Gabby’s Campaign and the Pima County Democratic Party are hard wired straight to the Star editors (Question… what is the name of the Star reporter that wrote “unbiased” political articles? You remember the one Gabby hired right after the 2006 elections?). Mr. Scarpinato tried his very best to connect some kind of wrong doing (anything would suffice) but all he could come up with were self serving statements from Gabby’s campaign and the Pima County Democratic party. Will somebody please tell the Star why they are losing circulation?
The following is Senator Bee’s statement on this subject:
While, I am very proud of the Career Ladder Bill (HB 1488) and am appreciative of the broad range of support that we received for our efforts to promote an improvement in pay for teachers that excel, it is unfortunate that some have tried to politicize this extremely important public policy issue.
It is a distraction from the significance of the Bill and what it hopes to accomplish: improving education for Arizona’s children, providing teachers’ incentives, performance pay, and allowing them to further their own educations while still serving their pupils in the classroom.
Part of the reason I am running for Congress is because there is a serious lack of bipartisan reform on nearly every issue. I am thankful to those who support me in this cause and I look forward to discussing issues like education reform on the campaign trail.
I’m very proud of what the Bill accomplishes. It provides incentives and performance pay for educators throughout the entire State of Arizona and the end result will be an improvement of our children’s education, but during this election season, this ad may be misconstrued and I’d appreciate it if the ad would be discontinued.
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